Blood on the Moon
by Carnivalgirl
Summary: When Teddy suddenly goes missing on their wedding day, his loving bride Victoire refuses to believe it's just cold feet. On further investigation, a strange story unravels, starting from the day they found out a shocking family truth. TLVW.
1. Mooning Over You

**A/N:** This is my new project! As often happens to me I have had a serious struggle with the title and it may change in the future. All of Victoire's relatives here, besides those who were introduced in the Epilogue, come from JKR's Weasley family tree which was originally revealed on a documentary in 2008, and can easily be found on HP Wiki. Everything is canon to the best of my knowledge, so Ted, as confirmed by JKR, is _not_ a werewolf. Ted's friend Rupert, the only OC here, first appeared in **All I Want for Christmas,** and if anyone's wondering where Fleur's accent has gone, it has improved a bit with 30 years in England. I hope you enjoy! Thanks very much to my lovely betareader, **ladyofthelight101**.

**Blood on the Moon**

**Mooning Over You**

Victoire Weasley looked in her full-length bedroom mirror and gave her reflection a goodbye smile. After twenty-six years of being a Weasley she was about to achieve a dream she had had for twenty of them; to be become Mrs Victoire Lupin. After months of preparation everything was ready-the hotel was booked, the flowers were arranged, she had even perfected her new signature. Her carriage would be coming in half an hour and there was little left to be done.

She turned around to her mother; 'I think I'm ready,'

Maman sighed with relief and pleasure. It had been an extremely long day. 'So do I,'.

She took a step back and revealed Victoire to the group of girls waiting on the bed. ''Ow does she look, ladies?'

All of them gasped and made excited comments, even her cousin Roxanne, who was the most reluctant of all of them to spend a night in girly fantasy.

'Camera!' someone shouted, and Victoire saw lights flashing before her eyes before she could smile, but the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look would only be one of many silly photos taken to speed up the long process of getting ready.

There was a knock at the door, and the grandmother-of-the-bride entered, looking elegant in purple dress robes and a wide-brimmed pointy hat. She immediately rushed over to Victoire and kissed her on both cheeks before glancing at her professionally made-up face.

'Oh, my little Vicky!' she gushed. 'Isn't she beautiful?'

'She is an _angel_,' Maman agreed, her eyes shining.

Victoire gave her bridesmaids a weary look. 'What are they going to be like at the wedding, if they're like this now?'

'You know Maman's got blue hankies in her bag, to match her outfit.' Dominique, her younger sister, said.

'Oooh!' Her cousin Lily exclaimed, 'Do you have something old and new and borrowed and blue, Victoire?'

Victoire nodded, showed these things off with glamorous little flicks of her hands.

'I've got this tiara, which is old and borrowed, this dress, which is brand new, and blue...'

She put her hands around her ears, which had turquoise studs in them; Ted's favourite colour. Her thoughts quickly turned to him.

'I've seen his dress robes, even though he hasn't seen mine.' she said. The change in subject seemed random but by now everyone was rather used to it. The extent of Victoire's love for Ted was occasionally quite alarming. 'He looks like a real gentleman-but sexy too.'

Nanny said, 'Doesn't it seem like no time at all since he was running round the garden in dungarees?'

'Don't...' Maman replied, clearly trying to reign in her emotions before the ceremony.

'We've got the honeymoon suite at the hotel for tonight.' Victoire continued. 'The bedlinen is made of silk, and there's a balcony with a view of the beach. Plus it has a pool, I didn't want to be in a hotel which didn't have one. Oh, _and _they put chocolates on your pillows,'

'Trust Teddy to choose one that had that.' Rose said, chuckling.

'It's so exciting!' Lucy cried. She and her twin sister Molly, both eight, were the youngest bridesmaids and had been at the house since early in the morning. Even though it was now almost seven they were still full of beans. 'I wish _I _was getting married!'

Molly glanced at her flower-shaped watch; 'Twenty minutes to go!' she shouted, which was followed by more squealing. Victoire decided she would squeal _inwardly _and turned back to the mirror.

She and her mother had worked hard to achieve the perfect look for her wedding. Her hair, which was Weasley red rather Veela blond, was in a plaited bun with small fabric flowers on hairpins poked into it. She wore a veil which did not cover her face (the only choice Ted had had over the ensemble) and a tiara belonging to her late Great-Great Aunt Muriel. Her dress had a wide skirt with a long train, inspired by the one worn by her aunt Ginny many years before. It had been specially fitted by the best tailors in London. As it was a winter wedding, she also would be wearing long gloves and a red cloak edged with faux white fur, which was matched, obviously, by red bridesmaids' dresses. Delacours had a taste for luxury; Mamie, her French grandmother, had insisted on going to all the best shops in London for her first grandchild's big day. It was enough to make a poor Weasley cringe, not to mention a poor Lupin, who had to be specially persuaded to buy a new suit.

'You know, _my_ parents had their wedding reception in the Burrow's back garden. And _your _parents got married in that same back garden. So really it'd be fitting if...'

'No, I want somewhere with a floor!'

He had, at least, convinced her that it was a bit unfair for their families to pay for everything. They had contributed their own savings from three years of engagement; though the Weasleys, being Weasleys, knew those savings had another important cause to pay for. One of the things Ted had been willing to tell her about his stag night ('Because trust me, you don't want to know everything') was that his friends had already began placing wagers on how long it would be until he and her heard the patter of tiny feet for the first time.

But if their recent visit to the formidably-named Family Planning Zone had been anything to go by...

She snapped out of her drifting thoughts with a cry from Lucy of 'Fifteen minutes!', but this had not stopped her mother from looking concerned at her daughter's suddenly looking serious.

'Are you feeling nervous?' she whispered in her ear, when the excited troupe of girls, who were now having last-minute make-up checks, weren't looking.

Victoire shook her head. 'No, I was just thinking about...something else. I know I want to marry Ted. I always have, there isn't anything in the world I want more.'

She said this with such a beautiful smile that Fleur drew her hands to her mouth in emotion. It was enough to make her daughter laugh.

'Maman! Honestly!'

'Oh, when you 'ave a little girl, you'll understand.'

Victoire averted her eyes and nodded. 'I'm sure I will.'

There was another knock at the door, and Victoire's father, brother and grandfather entered, all looking very happy and rather dashing in their dress robes.

'Is everyone _finally_ ready?' Louis asked. 'Mascara unsmudged? Nail polish unchipped?'

The bride and all her bridesmaids immediately looked at their nails when he said this.

Dad, meanwhile, had turned to look at Victoire. His scarred face lit up with a huge fatherly smile. Granddad also looked impressed.

'Blimey,' Dad said.

'She reminds me of our Ginny.' Granddad commented aside to Nanny. 'Like she walked out of a fairy tale,'

Victoire posed romantically. 'Do I look like a beautiful bride, Dad?'

Her father's smile became even wider; 'I think I'm going to find it difficult to give you away.'

'You're not losing a daughter, you're gaining a son,' Dominique said cheerfully.

'I always wanted a brother,' Louis added, half-jokingly, half-sentimentally. Louis was considerably younger than his sisters and Ted had always been a friend to him - Victoire had many painful memories of the first times Ted had come to dinner when they went out, and it was all '_Teddy, can you do elephant ears? Can you morph fish fins like a merman? Can you look like a girl?'_ Fortunately, all these reminders were not so much embarrassing any more as proof of how right it was for her to be with Ted.

'Ten minutes!' Lucy shouted, and this time, Victoire squealed out loud. Ten minutes, six hundred seconds, and here would come the bride...

Then suddenly, there was another knock at the door, except this time, it was the front door.

'Who could that be?'

'Oh my God! The carriage is early!' one of the bridesmaids said, and everyone began to fuss.

'Oh, Merlin, we said _seven_! No one's been to the loo yet!' Nanny protested, as Dad dashed downstairs to answer the door.

Victoire listened for the voice of her carriage driver, and was very surprised when she heard a familiar voice.

'Hello, erm, I assume no one's left yet?'

This was Rupert, Ted's best friend since his first day at Hogwarts and Best Man at the wedding. He was intelligent and friendly and Victoire loved his company, but she wasn't sure she wanted him at her house right now. Her muscles tensed. Was something wrong?

'No,' was Dad's reply. 'Everyone's upstairs. The carriage is due in ten minutes. Is there a problem?'

There was silence in the room as everyone strained to hear Rupert's voice. He was stammering very badly, which was certainly not a good sign.

'Yes. T-t-ted seems to have gone missing.'

Some people in the room reacted, but were immediately hushed by everyone else.

'What do you mean, missing?'

'I-I was supposed to join him at his house this morning, and when I got th-there he wasn't answering the door. I waited about half an hour, and then decided to go for it and Apparate in. He wasn't t-there. I went t-to Andromeda's, and to Harry Potter's, and he wasn't in either of those places. I went to Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, Kings Cross, The Leaky Cauldron; I even t-turned up at Kingsley Shacklebolt's place, which is a bugger to even get near. I was going back and forth all afternoon, th-though of course I kept ch-checking the house. I couldn't find him anywhere. I sent my owl this morning, but he hasn't come back yet. So...I...don't know quite what we're going to do here.'

Someone in the room said 'Oh my God' under their breath. Victoire took her mother's hand. She tried to steady her mind and hope that Ted was merely planning an elaborate surprise, but surely Rupert, Andromeda or Harry would've known about it? And even if they did this was a rather cruel way of arranging it.

'It's OK,' Mamn told her quietly. 'It's going to be alright.'

'Well,' Dad said, after a while. 'We ought to go to the hotel anyway. Perhaps Ted will surprise us all.'

'Yes,' Rupert agreed, though he seemed very hesitant. 'After all...the guests will be arriving about now, we can't be late.'

'Exactly, exactly.' There was another pause. 'So, five minutes.'

This time, no one squealed.

The eventual journey into the carriage was so silent and morose the driver felt forced to make wisecracks just so it didn't feel like a funeral. Communication came mostly through looks and expressions. Rupert had made one comment on how beautiful Victoire looked, and she had thanked him and asked him if he had his speech ready, but the conversation ended there. Molly and Lucy had huddled together while the older bridesmaids exchanged knowing glances which seemed to say 'affair' and 'cold feet' in Victoire's increasingly paranoid mind, much as she tried to deny what was happening. She breathed in the scent of her flowers and tried to think of how silly she'd feel later at the reception, when she would do her first wifely nagging on a husband still too fond of pranks...

There was no reception. There couldn't be one, not if no one got married. After three hours with awkward silence and no groom the ceremony, in accordance with hotel regulations, had to be cancelled. Many of the guests left with only sympathetic remarks and sheepish deposit of presents to the bride, who by this time was finding it very difficult not to cry. Her dream was becoming a nightmare and as ten o'clock approached it seemed nothing and no one was going to save what had been her perfect wedding day. She didn't want to think about what had possessed Ted to do this to her.

The wedding party and their closest friends and family congregated at the Burrow for drinks and general solidarity in the wake of a disaster. No one was speaking much; Molly and Lucy had been taken home by their parents in floods of tears. All of Victoire and Ted's presents were ranged unopened on the dining room table. There had been a palaver over cancelling the catering and the DJ, but luckily no one felt like dancing and a round of sandwiches from Nanny seemed to be satisfactory all round.

Harry Potter, the nearest thing Ted really had to a father, was particularly upset by the whole affair. He and Rupert were convinced that something terrible must have happened to Ted, as he could not and would not have abandoned Victoire without very good reason.

'Did you check the hospitals, and the Department of Law Enforcement?' he asked Rupert slowly. He was afraid of hurting Victoire, who still hadn't cried yet.

'Yes,' Rupert admitted. 'No response. I can't think...;

'Something has to have happened.' Andromeda said. 'Teddy wouldn't just...I mean, he _wouldn't. _Don't you agree, Harry?'

Harry nodded sincerely, though he, like Andromeda, couldn't help thinking of similar behaviour from a certain related newlywed many years before. Other people also looked around, silently asking each other the same question.

Victoire also didn't want to believe he had chosen to do this. Ted Lupin was the love of her life and she was the love of his. He was devoted to her in every way. There were the big things, like taking her to Paris and asking her to marry him, and there were the little things, like her name being carved in the wall of his shower (not many people knew about that). He had dedicated writing to her. Even before they had fallen in love she had been one of his best friends; she was the only one, for example, who could understand the tension he felt every full moon.  
They lived and breathed each other; being 'bonded for life' was the only thing above what they had. But apparently he didn't want it all. She tried to remove these thoughts from her mind and for a long time would not let anyone talk to her, as if she still expected Ted to stroll in and lead her down the nearest aisle. She would not even take off her cloak.

After another hour, in which everyone munched more sandwiches and made sparing conversation ("So will you be getting a refund?" "No, the hotel will not give it..."), Dad was the first to snap.

'....I can't bloody believe this,' he said. 'How the hell could he do that to my daughter?'

'Bill, please.' Maman said seriously, knowing what a fragile state Victoire was in.

'Second I get hold of him I'll wring his scrawny neck!'

'DAD!' Dominique and Louis shouted simultaneously.

Dad was too angry to stop. 'I don't like seeing my little girl get hurt. I think you can both understand that.'

'Mr Weasley,' Andromeda began firmly. 'I know my grandson better than anyone in this room and I assure you he loves your daughter. There is no way that he chose to do this.'

'Well, you would say that, wouldn't you? I think we all remember what happened with Remus and...'

'_That_ has absolutely _nothing_ to do with...'

She broke off as Victoire suddenly let out a soft moan, finally beginning to shatter. Her face crumpled and Dominique, Rose and Lily all reached to hold her. Upon seeing this, Maman leapt to her feet and glared lividly at her husband.

'I will 'ave none of this, Bill!'

'Fleur...' he started, though he suddenly seemed a lot more cowed under the Veela glare. Everyone in the room was silently watching them. 'There's no point in ignoring the bleeding obvious...'

'I don't care about what's obvious or not, look at Victoire! Get out until you 'ave calmed down.'

He glared at her. 'We can't just...'

'OUT!' Maman shouted, trembling a little.

Seeing she was as upset as he was if not showing it in the same way, Dad slowly rose from his chair and left the room. No one said anything for a moment as footsteps could be heard mounting the stairs.

'I'm sorry,' Maman told everyone demurely. 'It is a full moon, you know...it affects 'is emotions.'

Suddenly, Rupert's eyes widened. He slammed down his glass of mead and rushed to the window as if checking the moon was really there. He turned to everyone, his face glowing, and without the slightest hesitation he said;

'I think I know where Ted is.'


	2. Young And Whole Men

**A/N:** Very dialogue-y chapter here, I can't seem to produce a story without one! Many many references and things to previous stories in here; Remus's father was 'introduced' in **Now We Are Sixth Years**, Ted moved to Cardiff at the end of **To Love and Be Loved**, and I put him in Hufflepuff (like his mum) in **All I Want For Christmas**. I hope some people recognise the quote! If anyone's wondering where Rupert's stutter has gone, he feels a lot less nervous around Ted. This is accompanied by a one-shot, **The Wolf at the Door**. I'm sorry if this chapter isn't as exciting as the last, I haven't been able to spend as much time on it as I would have liked. But I hope you enjoy anyway! Thanks to all reviewers and readers, and to my wonderful hard-working betareader, **ladyofthelight101**.

**Chapter Two: Young and Whole Men**

_Young and whole men do not necessarily remain so._

_Six months earlier_

To go back to the very beginning, it started on a Saturday in June, on which Ted had a day off, something which was an exceptional occasion for him. During the week he worked at an apothecary, on Saturdays and during some evenings he would volunteer at a nearby wizarding children's home, and when he was not doing either of those he was writing or practising French. But today the children at the home were out on a day trip, the apothecary was staffed with the recently released Hogwarts students and the sun was shining. He decided that rather than holing himself up in his flat in Cardiff, he would spend the morning visiting Gran in Burnley, the afternoon meeting up with Rupert in Hosmeade, and the evening with Victoire...somewhere.

Gran was, as always, delighted to see him, and he was, as always, happy to be in his childhood home. Even though he couldn't promise regular visits any more, she always had cake ready, and she always offered to make him his favourite hot chocolate even though he was now twenty-eight (in fact she insisted on it, because he was far too skinny these days). She loved hearing about Ted and his busy life; she was seventy-three now and had little to preoccupy her, so she was one of the first to notice the wedding was approaching quickly.

'Only six months to go now,' she told him, handing him a cup of tea and some cake on a plate as he made himself comfortable on their old sofa.

'Really? Wow, yeah, I suppose there are,' he said, 'and we still haven't booked the honeymoon.'

'Oh, how exciting. Are you going abroad?'

'Victoire wants to go to New Zealand. It'll be sunny there.'

'That sounds awfully pricey, though I hear it's lovely there. But then again, once you have _children_ it'll be even more difficult, so you should make the most of it while you can.'

Ted had known it was only a matter of time before the great-grandchildren question came up. He and Victoire hadn't discussed it much, but it was coming to the point where both of them were slowing down outside pram shops, considering what their favourite names were, and wondering how big their future house would need to be.

'Have you being thinking about names and things?'

'Er...' Ted chewed on his cake in thought. 'No.'

She stared for a moment, then laughed. 'Typical men! I had your mother's name picked out and everything when I was sixteen.'

_Typical women, _Ted thought. That must have been what Victoire was on about when she asked him if he liked the name 'Ambrose' for boys. She thought 'Ambrose Lupin' sounded like a poet's name, he thought it sounded like a custard manufacturer. Still, embarrassing names ran in the family.

'How did you come up with "Nymphadora", anyway?' He'd probably already asked her that before, but she didn't mind telling him again.

'I didn't invent it, though that's what she tried to claim. I wish I had! I found it in a book. This knight finds a baby in the woods, and he names her Nymphadora. I just got the most beautiful image in my head of a perfect baby girl surrounded by flowers. I decided I wanted it for my daughter. And then, of course, your mother was a Metamorphmagus, which made it perfect.'

'And Granddad just went alone with all this?' Ted chuckled, imagining what he would think if Victoire really settled on 'Ambrose'. He was also rather intrigued. While Gran was often telling him about his mum's life, he barely knew anything about a time before she was born.

'Yes, he was so in love with his little girl he probably wouldn't have noticed if I'd called her Dustbin. Actually, now I come to think of it, we had a deal. He said I could name our girls, and he'd name the boys. Do you know, if your mother had had a brother, his name would have been Christopher.'

She got a quiet and wistful look about her, something she often acquired when memories of her husband and daughter came back to her, especially now, in her old age. Her smile would fade and she would look into the distance, or at her hands.

'I liked the sound of it. Nymphadora and Christopher. _Dora and Chris_.'

Even now, when he was very familiar with these moments, Ted felt conflicted. On the one hand he was always eager to learn more about his mother, no matter how random the knowledge, but he also hated the thought of upsetting Gran with painful memories. Even after all these years she was still sensitive at times.

'How come there was never a Chris?' He assumed if there had been a Chris and now wasn't, he'd have found out by now.

'Sometimes,' his grandmother said sweetly, looking at him directly, 'the Lord decides one child is enough, and won't give us any more. I decided just to be glad I had her...'

She didn't finish the sentence, and returned to her tea. Ted felt tense with guilt, though what she said also made him think. He and Victoire were assuming, subconsciously, that they could have as many children as they wanted, but what if they couldn't?

'You could've been called Sam, you know. ' Gran suddenly said cheerfully. She surprised him sometimes. 'Your mother might not have named you Ted if your grandfather hadn't died. For the first few months she was hooked on Sam. Don't you think Samuel Lupin is a nice name? And if you'd been a girl, I imagine you'd have been Olivia, or Rachel, or maybe Harriet. They never settled on a choice,'  
'Not very exciting names, then.'  
'No, well...she'd had enough of that for a lifetime, and Remus was just like your grandfather, he wasn't worried as long as you had ten fingers.'  
Ted webbed his fingers together with a scrunch of his nose and held them up. 'Darn. Should've stuck with Sam.'

Hours later, he was joining Rupert in the Hog's Head for drinks. They used to go to the Hog's Head when they were at Hogwarts; it was the only place where a Hufflepuff prefect could have a cigarette without causing a gossip storm. Both of them had given up the habit after a short while (Victoire didn't approve, and neither did their bank balances), but its grungy atmosphere was still rather nostalgic, even if they never wanted to remember the meat pies. Rupert was another one he couldn't see so often these days. They had lived near each other after leaving Hogwarts, but Rupert had gotten the job as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher there at the tender age of twenty-four and moved to Hogsmeade. Now, he was on holiday, much to Ted's annoyance.

'So you're off until the first of September?'

'T-twenty-eighth of August, actually. We have to go back in and sort the place out before the students arrive.'

Ted glared at him. 'I don't care what you say, your life is cushy.'

'You wouldn't say that if you had to mark several hundred exams. Besides, you don't get b-bad pay at the apothecary...'

'I said cushy and I stand by it.'

Rupert smiled complacently. 'Do you know, my niece will be starting in September?'

Ted was shocked. He remembered the day she had been born; he had been staying at Rupert's house at the time. 'Chaos' was the only appropriate word to describe it. Had that really been eleven years ago? That meant he'd been with Victoire for about ten and a half years...

'Merlin, I feel old all of a sudden.'

'It's a feeling I get every day.'

'Will she be joining our mighty house of Hufflepuff, do you think?'

'Well..if she's like my sister, which she is, she'll probably end up in Slytherin. I tried to instil the Way of the P-puff into her, I truly did.'

Ted thought for a moment, as the topic that had been on his mind since the trip to Gran's returned to him.

'I suppose my kids'll end up in Gryffindor. Victoire's entire family has been in it, excluding her mum, of course. My dad was in Gryffindor, and I dunno what house his family was in, but probably Gryffindor as well, most likely. So, if there's a Gryffindor gene, we've got it in spades.'

'I was going to ask you about your family,' Rupert said, suddenly looking very academic and serious, 'Do you know what your grandfather's name was?'

'Er...also, Ted?'

'N-no...your other grandfather. Your...father's father. What do you know about him?'

Ted was slightly puzzled. Had Rupert decided to sew him a family tapestry or something?

'What do you want to know?'

'Er...anything.'

'I barely know anything, at least compared to my mum's family,' he admitted. 'He was born in Yorkshire to a wizard family. They named him Amadeus after some famous Muggle guy whose name was actually _Wolfgang_...'

Rupert grinned. 'The irony just _burns _in your family.'

'I know. If I have a son, I'll call him Wulfric. So he went by John. After he left Hogwarts he moved to Norwich and worked as a scientist...then he met and married my grandma, and...my dad was born in 1960. Then...when my dad was six, he became a werewolf, and...my granddad spend pretty much the rest of his life looking for a cure. Dunno if he ever got close.'

'Well, Ted,' Rupert said with some excitement. 'I may have found out for you.'

He then delved into his bag and produced a thick notebook with a plain red leather cover except for the name 'A. J. Lupin' in gold letters. It seemed very old-Rupert had to shove in a few pages that had fallen out of it. Ted, who was always thrilled to see the name 'Lupin' when it didn't refer to himself, immediately grabbed it and stared at it intently.

'Where did you find this?'

'I found it inside a hollowed out book in the Restricted Section. Mysterious, eh? I was looking for something to read over the summer. I had a flick through it, and I decided you had to have it. So...there you go. You won't have to give it back, I don't think Madam Pince is particularly concerned with it...'

Ted was quite moved. He had few opportunities to get close to his father or his father's family-all he had of his paternal grandparents was an old photograph and what Remus Lupin happened to have told his friends, which wasn't much.

'Thank you very much. I'll have a read of it.' He stuffed it in his cloak pocket, and made a mental note to start reading as soon as possible. It really was a priceless gift, and it was difficult to know what to say after such a gesture...

'_Were you _listening to the match last night?'

'Yes! What the _hell _was the ref doing?'

Many hours later, Ted hadn't opened the book. Instead, he was lying on a beach in Bristol with Victoire. Long-distance Apparition had taken a long time to learn, but it was worth it to be able to literally pop back and forth between England, Scotland and Wales, and to take her with him. Both of them were totally relaxed on the sand, loose summer robes spread out like sheets with only their fingers touching, though that was a caress.

'Do you know,' he said, rolling over to face her. 'I realised today, we've been together for _ten and a half years_. Almost exactly. I know because we got together right after Chloe was born.'

'Who on earth is Chloe? And is that how you remember our anniversary? Nothing to do with me?' She sounded critical, but she was laughing.

'_No. _What I remember...is...the first time you kissed me on the cheek, and I got pink on my face in more ways than one.'

'Awww....hey, you know, your accent is getting a bit more Welsh every time I hear it. It's so cute and funny.'

'Hwat? Dear girl, _I_ am as English as...er, never mind. I suppose you should get used to it. You'll be moving in with me soon.'

She sighed happily. 'Yes!' After a pause, she said. 'How many bedrooms does your place have?'

'What? You've only been there about four hundred times!'

'I...don't go round counting people's bedrooms? Because that's kind of odd?'

'That is _rich_ coming from you. You counted my books, and everything I have in my medicine cabinet, and my wine bottles...'

'Alright! Just tell me.'

'Two.'

'Oh good.' she said in a slightly secretive tone, which he saw through immediately.

'...is this you turning this into a baby conversation?'

'I...no! Although, it is about time we had one! I mean, we've been together ten years, we're getting married, we're both getting to the right age, and...it's just about time we talked about it! Why? Are you going to go all _manly _and refuse to mention it until I'm pregnant?'

This was all far too much for one man to take in at once. 'OK, OK, you just said about a million things in one go! Firstly, no, I'm not avoiding the subject. Secondly, yes, I agree, it's something we at least need to think about. And thirdly, babies and kids have come up in just about every conversation I've had today, so...um...there.'

She seemed especially pleased about the third point. 'You've been talking about babies? Oh, that's so sweeeeet! Was your gran asking, or something?'

'Yeah, she was asking whether we'd been thinking about names and stuff. Before you ask, I don't know what I like, I just know what I don't like. No Ambroses.'

'_Fine_. Um... I might as well ask...do you want to name them after your...'

'No.' he said abruptly. It was a question he'd had from Harry and Ginny as well. 'One Remus and one Nymphadora Lupin was all the world needed.'

'Sorry,' she said politely, and they stopped talking for a moment.

There was not a full moon tonight, but it was close to one. Considering it was a Saturday night, everything was really quite quiet and peaceful. The sea could be heard going back and forth on the sand. Cars went to and fro, people shouted, but they ignored all of it and just stared into the dark blue sky above them. Sometimes just being next to each other was enough. It was a perfect, serene silence.

'Besides,' Ted said, breaking the moment. 'If I named my daughter Nymphadora, my mother would personally come down from Heaven and slap me.'

He expected her to laugh, but she looked rather sad.

'Ted...'

'Yeah?'

'You know how...your dad was a werewolf?'

'Yeah, I know how my dad was a werewolf.' He wasn't sure where she was going with this, but he was in a very good mood tonight.

'And how my dad is kind of half a werewolf?'

That conjured up odd images. 'Yeah.'

'That makes us pretty unique genetically, doesn't it? Do you ever wonder if...it's in us? I mean we're not werewolves, but what if we're...carrying it?' She gave him a wide-eyed look. He could see the moon reflected in them.

'What?'

'I mean, in our genes, like other diseases. What I'm trying to say is...what if...it affected our children?'

Unique genetics, while making you an interesting person at least, meant questions like that had no straight answer. The silence that followed was not quite so peaceful.


	3. Grand Children

**A/N:** I'm really sorry for the delay in updates; I have been busy lately, and this chapter required a little research. The good news is, though, I'll be able to update a lot more frequently from now on!

I am fully aware that the theories in this chapter aren't exactly canon, but (without giving anything away here) the story won't work without them. Though this story is set in 2026, by which time the price of genetic testing may have gone down, I must admit I've taken a little artistic license with the future in this respct. I'm also assuming the wizarding world follows the majority of world health systems in being private, but if you would rather think they followed the Muggle UK and had an NHS, imagine Ted and Victoire decided to skip the waiting list. The Uxbridge library is based on the Bodleian library in Oxford, England. The extract of Remus's letter is from the end of **To Love and Be Loved**.

Many thanks go to all readers and reviewers, and to my dear beta-reader, **ladyofthelight101**.

**Grand Children**

_I doubt I shall ever have grandchildren. It would be extremely dangerous for all concerned. _~ John Lupin, 1977

Once Victoire had that fear in her mind, she couldn't let it go for days afterwards. During the day, when she could run around working at the travel agency and doing errands, she told herself she was being ridiculous, but then came the nightmares. Babies with hairy palms and slavering bloody mouths appeared to her time and time again, and each time she would wake up gasping and shivering and unable to sleep for the rest of the night. There was not only the horror factor of it all, but the suffering. It was difficult enough for her dad to get by sometimes, and he was only slightly lycanthropic, having been bitten at twenty-six. Then there was, of course, the sad story of Ted's dad, who had had almost nothing to leave his son after decades of illness and unemployment. She was desperate to have children with Ted and always had been, and so it was for the sake of those potential children that she felt she needed some concrete reassurance.

When she asked Ted over the Floo network to come and do research with her late on a Friday afternoon, he laughed.

"Aren't I evidence enough?"

She sighed. "Yes, but I can't help wondering…what if the only reason you're not a werewolf is because your mum was a Metamorphmagus?"

He paused, and thought for a moment. "Well, there aren't really any books that can tell you that."

"Then there's the whole thing with my dad. He's the only one of his kind; we can't yet know how his condition affects me. And then there's Maman, to top it all off."

He frowned. "So why, if we're not going to find anything, do you want to go and do research?"

"…I'm worried sick," she told him, thinking of her increasingly painful headaches. "I'm got this thought in my head and I can't get rid of it."

Ted wasn't sure how to react to this. On the one hand, he was sure Victoire was being irrational. Her mothering instincts had suddenly come out in the most agonising way. Yet all at once he began to recall something his dad had admitted in the letter he wrote to him before he died;

_I will not deny how worried I was when your mother told me she was pregnant. I did not know if my affliction would be passed on to you. I could never have lived with myself if it had._

He suddenly realised that the pain Victoire was putting herself through was not especially silly after all. Looking up at her face, it was obvious she had been losing sleep, and her shoulders were slumped with tiredness, though that might have been from kneeling for too long. The sooner she found something scientific to reassure her, the better.

"There's a library in Uxbridge we could go to. My boss goes to it all the time to look stuff up. We could go there."

She agreed, and shuffled back so he could come through the flames. She stood up to kiss him, and touched his dark brown hair as she did so.

"You've gone natural today,"

"Yeah…'spose I was thinking about my family…"

They left the building, and she lovingly slipped her arm through his to Apparate. They were quickly whisked to the outside of an old domed building that looked exquisite in the soft afternoon daylight, and they stood gaping for a moment at its ancient yet still perfect design.

"Whoa..."

"It's even better on the inside."

At the entrance were two huge wooden doors, intricately carved.

"Are you sure we're allowed in here?" she asked as they walked in, but her fears were soon assured as Ted showed the receptionist a bit of paper which somehow allowed them in.

The place was immense. To get to the section they wanted, they had needed two maps, advice from three different people, and a little ride in a cart. However, it was partly worth the hassle just to see the miles of books that lay ahead of them. It was the bookworm's dream - shelf after polished wooden shelf of volumes. There was a smell of parchment in the air, as if you could learn just from breathing. Being underground, it was also dimly lit, and they were happily reminded of quiet days at Hogwarts.

"They have nearly every magical book in the world here." Ted said enthusiastically. "My granddad used to come here to do his research, including this precise section." He felt an urge to share a little of the notebook's wisdom. "He tried to know everything about lycanthropy, because it was his dream to cure it."

Victoire wasn't listening. "Does Auntie Hermione know about this place?" she asked.

"Know? She only funded the House Elf Studies section! Of course, it's mostly thanks to her that they have anything to put in it. She's the one who gave me the written permission to use the library, when I was doing my summer internship with her. You're not technically allowed to keep it for twelve years, but...oh well."

"I _knew_ I should have gone with her and not Uncle George…"

Naturally there was a great range of resources on lycanthropy, from the mediaeval to modern and from the superstitious to the scientific. There were many that were purely dedicated to it, and probably thousands that had a chapter or so about it. In some cases they really did have to judge books by their covers-any book that had its title on a full moon was ignored for its use of cliché. They grabbed as many as they could carry and sat in a circle on the floor with the books in a pile and parchment pads and quills ready.

"They obviously believed it was genetic, or they wouldn't have had the sterilisation policy," Victoire said as she examined a 1950s propaganda booklet. "But why did they get rid of it?"

"Political pressure. _During the late 20__th__ century the perception of werewolves changed as people began to recognise more and more that it is an affliction, not a crime. The Sterilisation Act of 1776 was repealed in 1965 on the argument that all wizards and witches have the right to a family._ But…there's no scientific evidence."

They both sighed. It was starting to get dark outside and the place had acquired a gloomy atmosphere.

"There's just never been a couple like us before," Victoire concluded moodily, though it was what she had been thinking since before they started their research. "I think we should go to a clinic."

"Why should we get a test which will probably just tell us we're fine?" Ted replied irritably. "Do you know how much they can cost?"

"What, you think we should wait 'til I'm pregnant?" She said, sounding equally annoyed.

"_No_," Ted said, "I just think…" He wasn't sure what to say. He'd been expecting to find the answer within an hour and get out in time to go home and cook a nice curry for dinner. Instead he hadn't found one helpful books; in fact he had carefully moved away one particular disturbing book which vividly imagined the potential pain of a pregnancy with a werewolf. It didn't look good from any angle.

"Alright," he said, trying to sound relaxed. "You can go and book it."

The appointment was booked for the following Saturday lunchtime, in the middle of Ted's shift at the children's home. Given that she was the one who knew where the Family Zone was (thanks, embarrassingly, to a rather paranoid mother), Victoire arrived at eleven in the morning on her Firebolt 12 broom to pick up her fiancé. When she found him, he was sat between two little girls at a table in the main playroom, concentrating on a bit of parchment covered in writing. They were both smiling excitedly. She approached quietly from behind them, hoping to catch some of their conversation.

"Do you like it?"

"Hmmm…well, it's definitely an exciting story, but you know what I think it needs? _Description. _That means you have to write what things look like, as well as what everyone's doing. Especially since you haven't done the pictures yet."

"I _did_!" One of the girls protested. She was slightly scruffy, with unruly hair and a face covered in freckles. "Look, Penelope has black hair, and she has a long sparkly red dress…"

"Yes, and I can tell she's very beautiful, but she's not all I want to know about. For instance…what colour is the dragon?"

"Purple!" the other girl immediately answered. Her hair was neat, but to Victoire's fashion-conscious eye her clothes were very outdated.

"Well then, you should write that the dragon was purple. And maybe it could have red eyes as well. That'd make it sound _scary_."

The way he said 'scary', and the way the two girls immediately agreed eagerly, made Victoire laugh a little, which got her a furtive glance, and a wink, from Ted. Once they were gone he stood up to meet her, though his eyes followed the children who were all disappearing from the main playroom.

"It's drink-and-snack time now. I won't have to be back 'til after lunch."

She smiled at him. "Have you been inspiring our future generation of authors?"

"Yeah, I'm their editor, don't you know," he said, cheerfully. "I'm hoping for royalties."

The appointment was finished with relatively little stress. The people at the clinic were certainly surprised and impressed with their unique combinations, and were very willing to answer Victoire's various questions, which she didn't stop asking for a moment.

"Do you think the reason why he's not a werewolf is because of his mother?"

Ted would have groaned with embarrassment, but he was having his cheek swabbed at the time.

"Well, our understanding of lycanthropy is limited, as you probably already know, especially in conjuction with Metamorphmagi. All our data has come to us from the past thirty years, and there isn't much of it. Your father's situation is certainly one we've never seen before."

They had to give several different samples. Victoire didn't like having one bit of hair that was shorter than the others, and Ted anticipated all the questions he'd get from the children about the plasters, but they felt fine once it was over. They would have a six-week waiting period for the results.

In those six weeks, Ted sold and made vast quantities of potions, helped produce the finished 'Penelope and the Dragon', and, thanks to his future mother-in-law, learned the French subjunctive in all of its forms and uses. His writing project rested abandoned in a drawer as he continued to read his grandfather's notebook. Victoire's crowning achievement was developing a package holiday for larger families (she knew their needs very well, somehow), and selling seven in the first week and twelve in the next. She and Ted booked their honeymoon in Italy and went on several dates, including a very pleasant one with Victoire's friends Pierre and Scarlett. While it seemed like an unbearable wait at first they gradually felt more and more positive about the results, and began to consider parenting more thoroughly.

"You know, I'd like to have a daughter," he told her one evening, when they were staying in and eating Chinese food while sorting the holiday insurance.

"Why, because of those girls at the home?"

He looked down at the table with a shy smile. "Maybe partly. But really it's because everyone in my family for the past few generations has had one son. My granddad was his parents' only son. Then my dad was his parents' only son. Then my parents just had me, though to be fair they couldn't really have any more. So I think I'd like to have a daughter or two."

She found this adorable. "OK. Though don't expect us to come to Quidditch when the sales are on."

Their results came on a baking hot Friday in August. They were planning to leave for Scarborough for a weekend away that afternoon and hoped to have a reason to celebrate. Sadly, this was not to be the case. They were informed shortly after they arrived that they had both tested positive as carriers of werewolf-like symptoms. Both of them had known this of themselves-Ted was emotional at full moons, Victoire got cravings for meat-but they hadn't expected it like this. The news was a terrible shock, and the session of genetic counselling that followed was definitely needed.

"The results suggest that due to the influence of your fathers both of you are carriers of a recessive allele that causes lycanthropy. Mr Lupin, your mother's being a Metamorphmagus seems to have helped to protect you, but you, Miss Weasley, have not inherited the Veela strain in your mother's family."

"So what does this mean for our children?" Victoire asked, feeling far from counselled.

The counsellor grabbed a blank piece of parchment and a quill and drew them a diagram (a 'Punnett square', he called it) which represented the possible combinations their children could have, taking Ted's being a Metamorphmagus into account.

"As you can see, if we represent the lycanthropy allele with a small 'l'…your children have a 75 percent chance of carrying the disease on, and, I'm sorry to say, you have a 25 percent chance of having a child who is a werewolf."

Victoire gasped, and her eyes immediately welled with tears. Ted reached out and gripped her hand.

"Well, that's not that big a chance, I suppose," he said, cheerfully, though also as a prompt for their counsellor.

"That is true," the counsellor admitted, "But, despite what literature may tell you, a werewolf has never yet been born, or at least registered. We do not know what risks may be involved for the mother and the child, considering the nature of the condition. As such, genetic engineering may be your safest option if you want to have your own children. The price range starts at 200 Galleons."

Victoire began to cry properly now. Ted put his arms around her, though he felt his own heart sink. It was what his father had feared, and before that, what his grandfather had predicted in the notebook.

"I'm very sorry," the counsellor said. "But there is little we can do at this time. Also, if you take the risk of having children and they carry the disease, it will be more and more likely that werewolves will be born into your family, and that is a situation best avoided."

Ted nodded. He knew he was scowling a little, but this was less out of anger and more an attempt to keep calm for Victoire. "It's OK. We'll be alright. It's a shock, that's all. You go through life thinking that you're perfectly alright and so's everyone else you know, and that this genetic stuff only happens to other people, but…then this happens."

The counsellor nodded. "Yes, that's a common feeling. You know you can always come back for more counselling if you feel you need it."

"…I suppose we should be thankful, in a way," Ted continued, "because if Victoire hadn't thought of it we'd never have got it checked out and Merlin knows what could have happened…"

Victoire sobbed harder hearing this. Normally she loathed crying in public but this room had seen many tears before, and she'd never experienced such pain in all her life. She didn't know if she'd ever be happy again.

On the Knight Bus later on (which, unlike the office in the Family Zone, was no place to cry), she still could hardly speak, even though she was supposed to be off on a sunny holiday. All of her life she had expected to have children one day, especially with the love of her life. She had always felt that she and Ted were meant to be together, not least because of how unique they were, and yet it was this very thing that was preventing them from achieving the dream of having a child together. All that pleasure of having a child that looked, spoke and acted like you and your love was denied to them, unless they were willing to give up all the money they had, and possibly more. Her parents couldn't afford it, and she wasn't sure she wanted to tell them, as it would break her poor dad's heart. Ted would never go to his grandmother for money; she wouldn't approve, and he, apparently thinking that having their very own baby wasn't worth the effort, had other ideas.

"Why don't we adopt?" he said quietly. "There are hundreds of children out there who need people to love them. Not all orphans have loving grannies and godparents. I know because I've met some of them. We're ideal for it!"

"No," she whispered back angrily. It was the first thing she'd said in two hours. "No, no, Ted, I want to have _your_ child, and if I can't then I don't want one at all."

"Victoire! How can you be so selfish? What difference does biology make if you love them?"

"What difference?" She was whispering with gritted teeth, but she wanted to scream. "It would be our child. Our creation. It would be our family. It would look like us and talk like us. It would be a product of _our love_. Is it selfish to want a beautiful thing that nearly everyone can have?" "But there's no point in carrying on this conversation, because thanks to this horrible, evil disease, we can never have children!"

She turned away and stared out of the window, trying not to cry again. Ted put his head in his hands and thought. When he was a child, after reading his father's letter, he had wondered if his parents had wanted him or not. It wasn't hard to understand that the war was not an ideal time to have children, and yet…

_"You became their hope,"_ Gran used to say. _"They wanted to make the world a better place for you. They knew that you would live their dreams for them if they didn't make it. Before you were born, whenever he went out on a mission, your daddy would give your mummy two kisses; one for her, and one for you."_

Lycanthropy had seriously damaged his parents' lives-was it fair that it should be allowed to ruin his? Why, when it had existed for centuries, was there nothing and no one that could help them move on from it?

At that moment it occurred to Ted that the reason why no one could help was that no one like him had ever been born before. The only person who could help them...was him.


	4. A Strange Case

**A/N:** Hello! Hope you all enjoy this chapter, even though it is shorter than those before it. Thanks go out to all reviewers and readers, and to my lovely betareader,** ladyofthelight101**.

**A Strange Case**

The weekend away was, for the most part, very enjoyable. They spent their first night in the nearest cocktail bar before heading to their beautifully decorated bedroom at only eleven o'clock. They then woke to the sound of seagulls calling, which reminded Victoire of Shell Cottage, and which was pleasant for Ted, who had always lived miles away from the sea. They went for walks in the promenade, ate in a Portuguese restaurant, and visited Hairy Bob's Cave - not as exciting as it sounded. Ted bought Victoire a new set of summer dress robes, and she bought him a fancy pair of sunglasses, and of course this inspired lots of silly photos. On the last night, after they had had a few drinks in the same cocktail bar, they went for a swim in the sea under a starry sky. It was those times Ted enjoyed most-it was enough just to be with her on a warm summer night, looking into her beautiful face which never lost its novelty for him. In three and a half months, he would see it every morning for the rest of their lives.

"I love you," he told her in the dark, his voice loaded with emotion.

She slid her hands down his shoulders as they stood in the water. Her engagement ring, which was a Lupin family heirloom, twinkled. "And I love you, Ted. I can't wait to marry you."

He slipped his arms around her slim waist, and she rested her head on his shoulders.

"I'm sorry I was so…nasty on Friday," she said, so quietly he could hardly hear her.

After a pause, he said "It's alright, I understand."

"It's just that having children is something I've always wanted for my life, especially with you, and especially now that the time is right," she said, her voice shaking a little. "I can't let it go just like that."

He didn't reply. Instead, he held her a little closer and closed his eyes. If she couldn't, he didn't know if he could, either.

Once they got back, they made a decision, in a non-verbal way, not to announce the news to the family. Victoire knew anything she told her mother or siblings would get to her father, and he would be devastated. It was no good telling her aunts or Nanny Weasley either, as news tended to spread fast in the family and it would be unfair for her mum to find out from a catch-up with Auntie Audrey. Ted also decided not to tell his gran immediately- he loved her dearly and felt ashamed for keeping such important news from her, but he didn't want to burst her excitement about great-grandchildren, nor remind her of what his parents had been through with him. There were times, as well, when he was desperate to tell Harry and Ginny because they had always supported him in the various trials of his life. When he had missed his parents, they would tell him stories about them. When his gran was ill in hospital, they let him stay with them. But what could they do with this?

Yet there were times when they both wondered if the reason they weren't telling anyone wasn't for those people but for themselves. They knew that they would only come to blows if they tried to make a decision-he knew she wanted the expensive treatment, she knew he wanted to adopt. When he woke up at nights, it would enter his mind immediately, and he would turn to cuddle her sleeping body only to find she, too, was lying awake and staring at the window with a look of despair. So together, they concentrated intensely on their wedding plans and separately, Victoire threw herself into her work and Ted put his heart into anything and everything that came his way especially his grandfather's notebook.

It had magical properties, so it went on for a lot longer than he had first imagined. Its wafer-thin pages were a pleasure to hold in his fingers and pages of squiggly handwriting made him feel an academic sort of thrill. He found out where his love of experiments and magical science had come from within the first few pages; his grandfather's notes, though organised in the usual way going back to Hogwarts lessons, showed he was an expert, yet still desperate to know more. There was no doubt he was obsessed with curing lycanthropy, but this gave him an incredible eye for the condition's subtleties _("The shadow of the wolf, as it is most commonly known, a sudden appearance of lycanthropic symptoms- eyes yellowish colour, nails lengthen by a few millimetres [do not return to normal length afterwards], hairs rise on back of neck")_. His hypotheses were sometimes a bit odd from a modern perspective, but this, Ted understood, was probably due to the massive variations in literature on lycanthropy _("The moonlight affects brain cells/chromosomes/hormones. That or Moon Goddess has grudge against Remus for some reason.)_

While Ted felt an affinity with his grandfather he also felt sorry for the small boy who would grow up to be his father, who in addition to his father's experiments was subjected to every obscure alternative healing opportunity going _("They didn't tell us there'd be leeches. Remus screamed the place down. Will go back to copper bracelets and crystals)_. It was clear to see the poor child was suffering, and after a particularly bad full moon when Remus had been unable to sit up due to severe back pain (at the age of just nine) Ted was relieved that Mr Lupin's devotion to his son included allowing him some freedom. Yet there was no mention of who, or what, was replacing him in the trials.

Someone who knew enough about potions, as Ted did, could see that over time Mr Lupin was getting close to the root of the condition. There were many familiar ingredients that were used in Wolfsbane Potion in the UK and in treatments abroad. The results he recorded (from whatever source) were also of interest-the milder symptoms at the full moon noticeably eased month by month. There were brief mentions of other naturalists showing interest in his work. Phrases like _"I am finally getting there" _and _"My discovery"_ and even _"When Remus is healthy again"_ began to appear, even though it was a record of experiments, not a diary, as if Mr Lupin could not restrain his excitement. It all seemed to be leading up to a final incredible experiment. Ted, feeling as he often did when he delved into a good book, was thrilled. Yet he was also suspicious. If things were going so well, why had the book been hidden in Hogwarts library? Why had it not been donated to a research foundation or something similar, or at least left in the care of the Lupin family? There was no way of finding this out; though the experiment was written up, the book ended abruptly after seven hundred pages, with no results or conclusions.

At first he was disappointed. It was the same kind of feeling he got when an exciting book ended with 'To be continued', except it seemed in this case the ending had never been written. Being a fan of mysteries he began to think of possible explanations; had the last pages been stolen? Had his grandmother, for some unknown reason, persuaded her husband not to go through with it? He also didn't know exactly when Mr Lupin had died; perhaps fate had got in the way. It wouldn't have been the last time for their family, after all.

Yet all of his life Ted had felt there was more to fate than death and misery. There were some good things that could never have happened if bad things hadn't preceded them. Though his grandfather had not lived to see a cure for lycanthropy, or even the invention of the Wolfsbane Potion (which, considering the ingredients he had studied, Ted wondered if he hadn't influenced) there was no reason why that dream was not impossible fifty-odd years later. Not only that, Ted was in a unique and ideal position; though he was not a werewolf, he had traces of the condition in his blood and occasional symptoms. He had the potion ingredients, and knew how to prepare them. All he needed to do was conduct the final experiment and the dreams of the past, as well as of the future-his and Victoire's children-would become a reality. There could be no more perfect wedding present than to give Victoire the chance to have what she had longed for all her life. Not to mention all the werewolves of their society (especially the children) who would finally live lives free of agony.

Over the next few weeks, he made attempts to acquire everything he needed. It was not as easy as it seemed-some ingredients were extremely rare, but as he had learnt from years at the apothecary, the occasional compromise could be made. There was little difference, so those in the know said, between the skin of a Hungarian Ridgeback and a Welsh Green once they had been powdered. Being in Wales rather than Hungary, the latter was much easier to come by. He also made the decision to conduct the experiment in his own flat. Yes, the back of the apothecary was more appropriate, especially because it had a fume cupboard. But what was a wand for, if not to protect its user? 'Home labs' were not uncommon. Besides, it was generally not permitted for employees to conduct their own experiments in the lab (there had been _regrettable incidents_ in the past) and there was only so much overtime he could pretend to do. As long as he didn't tell anyone about the plan, it was foolproof. That way, if it went wrong, the only regrets would be his. That way, no one would try to stop him.

Unfortunately, one Sunday evening, the plan hit a snag. After spending the afternoon with Victoire lovingly sending out wedding invitations to their many guests (written in calligraphy, as Victoire had learnt from her mother), he had spent the evening producing a satisfactory part of his grandfather's potion. It was a milky colour, and once it was finished he poured it into a bottle, corked it and put it to one side. Feeling very pleased, he was about to pour himself some Butterbeer and tune into the radio play on the WWN when there was a knock at the door.

It was Rupert who was stood outside, looking slightly more nervous than usual. Ted grinned, knowing what he had come about.

"Hello! Nice to see you here!"

"Hi. Thanks. I wanted to talk to you about…"

"Come in, come in…" Ted said, deliberately interrupting him, already feeling amused. "It's been ages, or at least it feels like it. You call yourself a best man? The flower girls have done more than you."

"Is it customary for the best man to receive an invitation?" Rupert asked, as he followed Ted into the kitchen.

"You know perfectly well why you got it. Have a drink." Ted said. He removed the Butterbeer from the cupboard and poured out two glasses with a flick of his wand. He was tempted to get out the champagne glasses, just for fun, but settled on tumblers.

"...You put 'And Guest' on my invitation!"

Ted laughed. He had expected this reaction. "Yes. And you know exactly who that guest is going to be. Don't start any of this rubbish about 'Oh, I'm a boarding school teacher' or 'Oh, the band is touring and we can't meet up'. You're a wizard, stupid, distance is no object."

"You-you-you stole the words from my mouth." Rupert muttered.

"And the wedding's in December, by which time I _assume_ the summer tour will be over. No excuses. Get inviting."

His friend sighed a little at this and turned towards the living room, and Teddy felt a bit guilty, though in a situation like this one, honesty was necessary.

"I'm sorry to interfere. Getting married hasn't turned me into some kind of rampant Cupid, honest. But you're starting to go from hopelessly in love to just plain hopeless."

Rupert's cheeks seemed to turn slightly pink, and it took him a while to get his words out. "Only because it can't last. Rock music types don't…t-tend to fall in love with Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers."

Ted laughed again. "Trust me, they do. Plus it's far too late to say that."

"It's not even a real relationship. There's hardly any time to meet up. All we have is our owls and the occasional chat on the Floo Network."

His eyes drifted to Ted's fireplace, evidently thinking of some recent sentimental conversation.

"Victoire thinks it's very romantic." Ted said kindly.

Before Rupert could comment on Victoire's opinion, he noticed the beaker of preliminary potion on the mantelpiece.

"What is that?" he said.

"What?" Ted responded, though he felt a shock run through his body.

"That potion. Have you been concocting something?"

Ted had to think quickly. It was similar to a few regular potions... "No, no, no. It's something…er…from the Healer. For…er…a chest infection." He tried to cough convincingly. "I'll just put it away."

"You can take it in front of me." Rupert said. "I don't mind."

Ted was struck with a dilemma. Did he tell his friend about the experiments or drink the potion? Knowing how irritatingly sensible Rupert could be there was no choice. He grabbed the potion and drained it.

Unfortunately, though it looked like one and smelt like one the potion wasn't nearly as easy-going as a Chest Potion. It sent Ted into a coughing fit that made his throat burn, his eyes water and his face turn the colour of beetroot. He imagined from Rupert's expression that his hair was turning several different colours as well. He nearly fell onto his knees, and his friend crouched down beside him, looking very worried.

"Merlin, Ted…I thought you were getting rid of a chest infection, not giving yourself one!"

"I'm OK!" Ted said, wiping his eyes and smiling.

Rupert gave a friendly pat on the back. "You Metamorphmagi never cease to amaze me. Your hair was like a Disco Orb back there. It's gone pink. Very pretty."

"Thanks." Ted rasped, sarcastically.

"And your eyes…" Rupert continued, looking at him closely. "…are a funny shade of _yellow_."


	5. The Incident by the Road

**A/N:** Finally! I am very relieved to be updating, let me tell you. A belated thank you to all last chapter's reviewers and readers! Also, the translation for Teddy's French is roughly; "Hello, my love! Are you free this evening?" Special thanks to my betareader, **ladyofthelight101, **who read this twice. Also, in case there are any readers ready to nitpick, I'll add that Ted and Dominique are mistaken; both are genuine names.

**Chapter Five: The Incident By The Road**

Forgetting the pink hair and yellow eyes for a while, Ted and Rupert spent the rest of the evening with cards, beer and, once Rupert had been picked on enough about his nameless true love, nostalgia, most particularly first year, during which they had befriended a young centaur (and learnt some archery from his dad), kidnapped the girl Slytherin Prefect's diary and held it to ransom (especially funny since she was Rupert's sister) and, in memory of Ted's late father, successfully petitioned against the Shrieking Shack being demolished (though Remus Lupin probably would have been glad to see the back of it). So Ted almost forgot about the alarming reaction to the potion until right before he went to bed. He decided, remembering his rigorous training in potion emergencies during and after Hogwarts, that sleeping with a bezoar on his bedside table was the best option. He did have quite a collection, which was one of the advantages of working at Slug and Jiggers.

The next morning, after an uninterrupted night of sleep, he woke up ahead of his alarm and went to the mirror. His reflection had the same turquoise hair and brown eyes he had gone to bed with. His nails were the same practical short length and his hands and feet definitely seemed to be the usual size, which for a Metamorphmagus probably meant that nothing peculiar had happened. He remembered all the jokes his Gran used to make if he had a cold and his shoes didn't fit in the mornings, as the same had happened to his mother a few weeks after her honeymoon.

He opened the curtains to a beautiful late August morning, and because of this and the fact it was early he hurried with his breakfast and decided to walk to work. Within a few minutes he was on his way to the Leaky Cauldron, and it was enjoyable to watch the Muggles rushing to and fro to get to their red buses, a few of them glancing suspiciously at his hair and clothes. Victoire once said they probably thought he was some kind of punk-rock hippy, which Ted thought suited him.

He was just thinking of her and when he would see her again when suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps running towards him, and was joined at both sides by two little red-haired girls, one with pigtails and the other with plaits. The girl on the right had an 'L' on her hooded top, the one on the left had an 'M'.

"TEDDY!" they shouted simultaneously, even though they were next to his ears.

"Hello, girls!" Ted replied cheerfully. These two were his and Victoire's flower girls Molly and Lucy Weasley, the twin daughters of Percy and Audrey Weasley, and Audrey swiftly appeared beside them, giving Ted a wave.

"What are you two up to today then?" he asked, letting the twins link arms with him, though they had to reach a bit.

"We're going to the museum for a Children's Activity Day. It's about Cavewizard Art," Molly said.

"Sounds cool," Ted said. The two little girls gave him strange looks.

"Museums aren't cool!"

"They're cooler than going to work, let me tell you that," Ted said in a wise, grown-up sort of manner, and Audrey smirked.

"Tell me about it. I'm doing overtime in the restaurant tonight, their gran's going to have to look after them until Daddy's finished. Why do I do it, Teddy?"

"You just love making mashed potato look sophisticated?" he said, to which she laughed out loud.

"Oh yes, you and Victoire liked that last time you came, didn't you?"

Audrey Weasley was a beautiful woman who liked to wear flowery robes and co-ordinated hats. She got excited about perfectly fitted curtains and new kitchen counter tops, and she enjoyed making cakes and fancy-dress costumes for children when she wasn't working at The Princess Eugenie restaurant off Diagon Alley. When Ted had met her, at the age of ten, he had been sorry that his own mum hadn't been so mumsy, but he had soon changed his mind. Both she and Percy were aggressively protective of their precious girls; Ted had occasionally had to step in to defend George's daughter Roxanne from her aunt and uncle's rage when she was kind enough to share her Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes freebies.

"So how are your wedding plans coming along?" Audrey asked.

"Everything's going well so far," Ted said, ignoring the girls for a minute. "We've just sent out the invitations, which is quite exciting, and Victoire's going shopping this weekend for a dress with her mum and grandma."

"Oh, how lovely for her!" Audrey gushed. "I'm sure she'll choose something stunning. She definitely has her mother's fashion sense."

"Yeah, just got to make sure she doesn't blow the honeymoon spending money on the shoes..."

They were then interrupted by a shout from a stall across the road, in front of an café.

"ICE CREAM! TRY OUR NEW BLUEBERRY ICE CREAM! LONDON BLUE!"

There was nothing more exciting to a seven-year-old than a free sample of ice-cream, and with her mummy distracted it was too good for Lucy to resist, and she sprinted into the road ahead for them. Ted, however, noticed the second the weight came off his arm and raced forward just as a red car approached. He lunged towards her, though she was almost out of reach.

"LUCY!" he shouted desperately, and grabbed her hood so fiercely that it ripped. Still it was enough to stop her, and the car went straight past. Ted just took one look at the unshaken, still living little girl and breathed a sigh of relief. Audrey hurried towards them, dragging Molly with her.

"Lucy!" she said angrily. "How many times have Daddy and I told you about cars? You _always_ look out for cars when you're in town!"

"I'm sorry, Mummy," she said.

"I should hope so. Don't ever do it again, do you hear me? Never again. Now what do you have to say to Teddy?"

Lucy said nothing.

"Say _thank you_, Lucy."

"He ripped my top. I got that top for my birthday!" Lucy protested, and Audrey turned to see the offending piece of pink material in Ted's hand. Her normally pretty face frowned.

"I'm sorry," he said, offering it to her. "I couldn't quite reach her, so I..."

"It's fine! It's absolutely fine!" Audrey said with her more characteristic preoccupied tone, and, taking the material from him, moved Lucy away from the crowds towards the shadows and crouched down beside her with her wand to repair the top. Molly and Ted looked at each other and then in opposite directions, feeling mutually awkward, and Ted thought about hurrying off to work before it got too late and he missed the chance to have some tea.

"The Repairing Charm didn't work."

Audrey had suddenly appeared in front of him again, with a grumpy-looking Lucy holding her arm and staring up at Teddy with obvious bitterness. He found it baffling that she should be so angry about sacrificing a top for her life; perhaps it would be better to have sons. But Audrey obviously expected an answer from him.

"Did you buy it from a Muggle shop?" he suggested, under the cover of the traffic and the shouts for ice cream. "Muggle-made fabrics don't respond well to modification charms; it either doesn't work or they end up a bit wonky."

Audrey sniffed. "_No. _They were presents from my sister. She never buys Muggle clothes for that very reason. I'll have to repair it by hand; she certainly can't go to the museum with it on."

An awful thought suddenly occurred to Ted. Fabric, like skin, could not be magically repaired if it was broken by a curse, or something cursed. This was the reason why the Shrieking Shack was in such poor condition, and why his father had had to repair all his clothes himself. If there was a drop of lycanthropy in his body, it would make the rip he made in Lucy's hood unfixable by magic.

He dismissed that thought very quickly. He hadn't scratched the fabric with his nails, he'd grabbed it with his fingers. Besides, some things just couldn't be repaired that easily, as he had learnt from spending a lot of time around the Burrow where something was always leaking, creaking or falling apart. He apologised yet again to Audrey, shaking her hand and giving the girls a friendly smile instead of the usual hug. He then walked the rest of the way to work, feeling a mixture of annoyance with himself for ripping a little girl's top and annoyance with Audrey for never thanking him for saving her daughter.

His bad mood made for a miserable day at work. There was barely anyone around to keep him company at the front, as his colleagues, Nick and Phil, got the far more interesting laboratory work by turning up early. He also missed Sammy, a Gryffindor student who had worked there over the summer but was probably either on holiday or getting ready to go back to Hogwarts. The most interesting customer was an old lady who saw no reason why she shouldn't tell Ted the history of her diarrhoea problems, which were not helped by the potion she had previously bought because of the nutmeg in the potion. When he offered her a potion to treat her rare nutmeg allergy, she said that actually she just hated the taste of nutmeg, and she didn't him to try and _sell_ her anything more than the alternative bowel treatment, that was gathering dust deep in the cellar because most people could put up with a bit of nutmeg. So, they both ended up rather irritated. If Ted hadn't sworn to promote the store products as far as possible, he'd have recommended some U-No-Poo.

What it did was make him desperate to get back to the home lab. It was irritating to have to start again but he'd bought a good number of ingredients (also eating into the honeymoon budget, but this was worth more than a pair of shoes). Slug and Jiggers offered a staff discount for their products, and the savings went on the imports from abroad. At times he paused to think that everything would be much easier if he gave up and took the genetic engineering route, but this would help countless people. Just thinking about the possible results made him feel happier than he had for a long time. So, he made a preliminary solution just as he had the previous day, and decided to follow his grandfather's instruction to leave it for 72 hours. With that, and a quick dinner of pasta and sauce, there were still two hours until his usual bed time, and nothing seemed to appeal, not even the Muggle book Dominique wanted him to read. Nothing, that is, except a certain someone who was also probably staying in tonight.

As he joined the Floo network at her and Dominique's flat, the sight of their plush pink carpet and Victoire's fluffy slippers from the fireplace made him happier than he had been all day.

"Coucou, mon amour! Tu es gratuite ce soir?"

Those slippers walked towards him, and their wearer said;

"Two mistakes you've made there. Firstly, 'gratuit' means free as in 'no price'. You want 'libre'. Secondly…" She bent down to his level, and he saw the same beautiful hair as his Victoire's, but a frecklier face and a wolfish grin inherited from their dad. "I'm not your choupinette".

"Sorry, Dominique," Ted said, feeling a bit embarrassed. "How are you?"

"I'm alright," she said, shrugging as her mother usually did. "You?"

"Getting by."

"Did you read that book I sent you?"

"No…I only just finished the last one! I'm busy, you know!"

"More like lazy! Don't you remember when we read 'The Faerie Queene' together?"

"I'll never forget. It was…what's the phrase? A near-death experience."

He and Dominique didn't agree on everything when it came to books, and they loved arguing so much they sometimes pretended to disagree just to annoy each other. They hadn't had a good discussion since that really girly vampire romance she made him read.

"You have no taste in literature! Sometimes I think you choose books just because the characters have silly names. This latest one you've lent me, for example. Who has ever been called 'Sherlock', apart from this guy?"

He faked offence. "Did you just insult my childhood hero? My _granddad_ passed down those books." When she looked shocked, he smirked. "Besides, no one has the surname 'Jekyll' either."

"It's pronounced JEEK-ul," she said, lightening up again. "And trust me, that's not the important thing…"

Just then, Ted saw Victoire appear in the doorway, and she also knelt down beside the fire.

"Let me guess, you two have been talking about books?"

"Hello, Victoire," Ted said warmly, and Victoire knelt down beside her sister, looking very happy to see her fiancé.

"I'll leave you two to it," Dominique said flatly, and got up and left the room.

Victoire made herself more comfortable. "Hey, Ted. Did you want something?"

"Nothing particular. I just felt like seeing you."

She gave him a pitying look. "Bad day, huh?"

"You know me too well."

"I'll come over," she said, and within a minute, she was standing there beside him.

He wrapped his arms around her, his fingers touching her lovely hair. Even though it was just an ordinary Monday she looked beautiful in the simple robes she was wearing. Hoping gestures said more than words, he was about to kiss her when she said;

"Your flat smells really odd."

He sniffed deeply. There was indeed a strong smell of wolfsbane in the flat, and since Victoire's father took the potion to relieve his symptoms during the full moon, it was a smell she couldn't fail to recognise.

"Oh, I was…brewing a…a…potion."

She didn't seem to be in the mood to interrogate him, because she simply sniffed again and then let her head rest on his shoulder, so she could breathe in a much more pleasant scent. "Let's go clubbing."

"What? Victoire, we have work in the morning... Oh God. I've become old and sad."

"Aw," she giggled. "You're not old and sad, you're right. It is a Monday night. But I feel like dancing…"

"Say no more!" he said, and thirty seconds later, the light was dimmed and their favourite compilation album was on the record player. Victoire added some neon waves of light with her wand and Ted adjusted the volume.

"I don't think this is quite authentic club!" Ted shouted to Victoire, who was already losing herself to the bassline. "No one's stood on my feet yet!"

"It's only because they're so big," she giggled. She kicked off her slippers and climbed onto his feet, and put her arms around his neck. Just at that point 'Only You' by the Hobgoblins came on. It was a rock song, but it had romantic lyrics and amazing guitar, and they were going to have it at their wedding whatever Ted's gran or Victoire's mum thought of rock music.

As they danced, they let their legs, arms and hands intertwine, and as the music reached a crescendo she suddenly lifted her hands to his face and kissed him passionately. He responded and deepened the kiss, enjoying the warmth of her lips and the scent of her perfume.

"_I love you_," he told her as they broke apart for air, singing along with the music but meaning every word. "_You are the only one for me._"

"I love you too," she replied with equal feeling, and kissed him again. "When we get married and move in together, we'll have nights like this every night."

He laughed, "Yeah...for about five minutes. And then the kids'll appear at the door asking for another story, or we'll need to put the cat out...

"...or my mum will call for a chat on the Floo for about an hour, or there'll be washing to do, or you'll want to work on your novel..."

"Sounds like mayhem."

"I know," she said, hugging him more tightly and resting her head on his shoulder again. "But I want it. I want a home that's filled to the brim with mayhem, but at the same time with love, even if it's just us having a cuddle for five minutes every day. And we will have it, won't we, Ted?"

"We will," he said, his cheeks flushing with love and excitement. "The cat, the washing, your mum, my novel..."

"And the kids," Victoire added.

"And the kids," he said, and they kissed once again.


	6. For Better or Worse

A/N: Greivous apologies for the delay, hope this chapter is worth the wait. Thanks to all reviewers and readers, and to my helpful betareader, **ladyofthelight101**.

**Chapter Six-For Better or Worse**

After that Monday night, Victoire began to see very little of Ted. There was no reason why things should have changed between them, as the night they last spent together had ended perhaps even better than most with her not going home until the morning, and so his distance troubled her. It wasn't that he was harsh; he responded perfectly well to her letters and on the Floo network. He told her he was fine, it was just that work was tough at the moment and he was bogged down with that, the wedding and trying to write. The nights were also getting darker and the weather was grey and stormy as autumn drew in, and she knew that, as with the moon, his mood sometimes varied with the atmosphere. Yet before they could really address what was really wrong he would often throw something about the wedding into the conversation because as time went on it was all she could think about, and only once they'd finished talking did she realised he'd deliberately distracted her.

"He's stressed out, that's all," Dominique assured her. "He's an artist, remember. They get upset over things the rest of us can't understand,"

This was meant to be a joke, but Victoire didn't smile. "Do you think he's having doubts?"

"No, absolutely not. For one thing you're not the only one he's ignoring; he still hasn't returned my copy of 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' even though it's been six weeks, and James said the other day that he hasn't seen Ted at Sunday lunch for ages, even when Auntie Ginny made devil's food cake for him. And another thing;" she added, seeing that her sister still wasn't convinced, "he's a man. They need to be on their own sometimes and have their little secrets. And they don't need to be showered with love at every single little opportunity."

"Ted and I always say 'I love you' at the end of our conversations," Victoire retorted proudly. "And we have done for years, although he's...been forgetting lately."

Dominique, despite being the younger of the two, smiled wisely and maturely. "Victoire, it's been ten years. Does Ted really need to tell you constantly that he loves you for you to believe it? I mean Maman and Dad don't kiss and cuddle in public unless they've had too much to drink, and when they leave each other in the morning they just say 'Bye'. But they love each other very much - as we both know - and hopefully they always will."

Victoire had to admit that, despite the way she followed celebrity couples and their various shenanigans in magazines, her mother and father were the ideal she longed for.

Still, she knew, somehow, that something different was happening. Ted wasn't the kind of person who, when you asked him how his day was, said "fine" and left it there. He was conversational; he liked telling people, especially her, about the things that stimulated him. The times he went away with his Gran in the summer years ago, he wouldn't write postcards about the food and the weather like most people, but rather things like _"At the aquarium today I saw a prawn the size of my head. You could roast it and feed a family_" or _"I think Anne Boleyn's ghost would be much happier at Hogwarts. Nearly Headless Nick could thoroughly sympathise with her situation"_. These days however his letters were so boring and conventional she wondered if his brain had been involved in them at all. She did her best to remain optimistic and concentrated on her work at the travel agents', as well as on finalising what colour her bridesmaids would wear, what they would serve for dinner, the insurance for the honeymoon, starting her diet in order to look her best, and all kinds of little things. A lot of her effort also went into trying to get over the baby problem emotionally, which was extremely difficult at times. At one point she had refused a glass of wine at her friend Kate's house with the excuse that she wanted to Apparate home, and the apparently knowing yet actually completely oblivious grin on Kate's face hurt Victoire's heart a little. Months from now, she thought, everyone would be watching her like that, and she'd disappoint them all.

Dominique wasn't wrong about Ted being stressed out; without the company of his friends and family, who were all busy with work and school, the only time he was at all happy was when he was in his home lab. At work at Slug and Jiggers he would glare miserably at the rain and think incessantly about the potion and what it meant for his and Victoire's future. Their shining future developed in his mind; he imagined their beautiful daughters first crawling around, then doing their first magic as tiny children, then as brilliant Hogwarts students (of Hufflepuff House, obviously). With this, he grew more desperate to work on the potion with every day. He would find himself thinking about it while working out in the shop, as his doodles on the notepad were of conical flasks and leaves rather than spirals and stars. He also got into some trouble when he accidentally added eye of newt to a Shrinking Potion and it bubbled over in stinking, black gunk all over the worktop, just because he'd been thinking about it. He had to spend half an hour cleaning it up and ended up doing overtime, which meant he was away from his real work even longer. His boss was disturbed as it wasn't like him to make such clumsy mistakes, but she blamed wedding nerves, and possibly an excess of bile.

At home, it was even worse. Every scrap of paper, even old letters from Gringotts or Flourish and Blotts', had measurements, diagrams and observations written in scruffy handwriting. At one point, especially after moving out from at home with Gran, the flat had seemed so huge and spacious, but now there was nowhere to put anything. His old black bag was full even with the aid of magic, and the smell of wolfsbane in the room wasn't the only problem. Gran certainly had a few things to say when she came over and saw that his lovely dining table was stained with some purple substance, and that the set of chairs was ruined as one of them had been corroded by some acid. She accused him of being a workaholic, yet she knew her grandson as well as he knew himself and she knew he enjoyed it too much to stop. She couldn't count the number of times when, as a child, she'd found some strange substance in his hair, ears or nose.

For Ted Lupin's love of potions may not have been inherited from anyone close (in fact, hatred of Potions seemed to be the family tradition) but had started at a very young age. His reaction to medicine as a young boy wasn't "yuck" but "what's in it?", and he had displayed an aptitude at Potions from his first lesson, though the first lesson he remembered most fondly was not the very first but his first NEWT-level lesson, when the Professor's introductory speech had told Ted, in better words than he could use himself, why he loved the subject so much. The man's voice had echoed through the room with such emotional force that the only other sounds were the breaths of gaping mouths.

_"I expect that all of you are at least some degree aware of the importance potions have on our lives, but let me enlighten you further. Potions are essential to every aspect of our lives, externally and internally. Your mothers took potions for your benefit while you were in their wombs, and you will no doubt be administered potions on your death-bed. If it were not for potions the Dark Lord himself may not have been vanquished _[Ted had spent a long time wondering about the contribution potions had made to the war, until he found out that the Astronomy, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy professors were using the same line] _The world around you is bursting with ingredients that Nature has given us, and with them we continue and improve on her great work. Academically, the subject ties especially with Herbology, Transfiguration and Charms _[which, coincidentally, were three of Ted's other subjects]_ but the others influence us as well. Making potions is both a science and an art and becoming a potioneer _[he liked to use this word, it was adventurous, like 'mountaineer'] _will open up a wealth of opportunities for you once you leave. You may travel the world in search of new and rare ingredients, you may risk life and limb in discovering their various properties, or you may cure some of our worst diseases."_

_Or, _Ted used to add to himself, _you'll work in the labs at Slug and Jigger's, and the most exciting thing you get to do is fly to Sheffield once a month for extra ingredients and stop off at Hetty's Café for a slice of coffee cake. _So much for that 100% in the NEWT! He had turned to writing not only because he had stories he wanted to tell, but because those stories were much more interesting than day to day life (although his love for Victoire always managed to keep his feet on the ground). But now, finally, he would have his own story, his own miraculous adventure. His face lit up every time there was a puff of smoke or one of the smells his grandfather had described wafted into his nostrils. No paints or paintings had ever pleased him as much as a bright yellow saffron solution, a pure white sediment or a perfect green litmus test.

It was for these reasons and more that he started to grow introverted. He was reluctant to give anyone even the slightest hint of what he was doing every afternoon and night. While it was still the case that he didn't want anyone other than himself to be let down if the whole project failed, a small part of him also despised the idea of anyone getting involved with it. As far as he was concerned, this was his destiny; as a Metamorphmagus, a scientist, and the only son of Remus and Nymphadora Lupin, he felt he was the only one who could finally bring about what his parents and grandfather had needed and wanted so badly. The thought of someone else swooping in, changing things and eventually scooping the glory was abhorrent. It was _his_; he was even inadvertently claiming it from his grandfather.

Yet a preoccupied mind, no matter how much it may be confined to itself, soon begins to reveal itself on the outside. He was becoming so absent-minded at work that at one point he nearly set his hair on fire and he was told to sit down and read the lab rules like a first-year Hogwarts student. His appearance was also changing, and not in the usual way; though he thought he was waking up to the same old cheery face, his friends were disturbed by his rumpled hair which changed colours by itself, his dull, mustard-coloured eyes with dark rings under them, his unhealthy-looking, neglected skin and the facial hair he seemed not to have noticed (though he probably would have kept it if he had, because Victoire thought sideburns were sexy).

The worst nights were those before the full moons. He was always tense then and the slightest problem, such as a waste of distilled water or a beetle broken before it was ready frustrated him immensely. He knew from his grandfather's notes how essential it was that the finished potion be exposed just before the full moon came in. And so, at three in the morning, the last waxing gibbous moon of October shone its light on a tray that was balanced very precariously on thee windowsill by the trembling hands an extremely fatigued young scientist. After twelve hours and as many coffees Ted found he didn't care anymore whether such a thing was a millimetre or two too short or whether it had been stirred forty or forty-five times as long as it got under the bloody moon and he didn't have to wait for the next one as he had last month (he'd been so busy sorting out the potion he forgot the most important part of it). He collapsed on his sofa in a daze, and was only just alert enough to cast a quick spell to slow down his racing pulse.

He came in to work the next morning unsure of how many hours he slept. His thoughts were becoming so hectic that they invaded his dreams now too and he was becoming unsure of where the line was these days. He had just about been awake enough to have some breakfast (though some of it ended up on the floor) and his stinging fingers reminded him that he'd tried unsuccessfully to make yet another coffee. Yet overall he was pretty pleased with himself, having woken up to a beautiful primrose-yellow potion and had gulped it down immediately to study its effects tonight. He was happy and keen to work, if only so it would be over more quickly.

His boss, Matilda, took one look at him and said, in her usual polite fashion; "You look bloody awful. I mean I know the full moons have a funny effect on you but you look like you've been dragged through a Flitterbloom backwards. Twice."

Ted grumbled incoherently. "Mmm fine, just need some coffee."

Nick took a look at him too. "You need a day off, mate."

"No!" Ted said angrily. Yes, he would have liked to go home, but his pride meant he didn't want to admit he was in a bad way. "I said I'm fine."

"Stockroom," Matilda said.

"Oh, bloody hell..." Ted never usually complained in front of her, especially in those terms, but the stock room was dark and dingy and meant for people like Snape. Or incompetent work experience students. Certainly not full-time workers.

Yet, there he was. With only a small candle and repeated Light Charms to see, surrounded by dusty bottles, bell jars and flasks. He had to check that nothing was out of date or moldy or mixed with anything else or misplaced; essentially, he was a more scientific sort of shelf-stacker for the day. He sat down, and sulked. To cheer himself up for a little while he thought about Victoire, and then sang 'Ten Bottles of Butterbeer' and 'One Man Went to Mow' to himself, but the seconds still went at geological pace. He wished there was a snail in there to watch to make things a bit more interesting.

Just then, a thought occured to him. It was something he had never even come near to thinking about before his experiment began. Here he was surrounded by ingredients that were pretty much never used. Most of them had been bought in line with fashions such as Hair Bleaching or Chest Enhancing potions, and were now rotting away uselessly as the customers and the shop moved on. But to him, they were very useful. No one would probably notice if they were gone, and besides, he was entitled to certain priveleges as an employee, was he not? With only a few seconds of hesitation he began to pull out jars and filled his pockets, making sure to disguise any suspicious smells or stains on his hands and clothing.

Suddenly, more light flooded into the room as the door opened. Ted leapt to his feet, terrified, when he heard a familiar voice say;

"Merlin's beard, it's dark in here! Lumos!"

Ted had never been so stunned to see Rupert in his entire life. His pulse had already been racing; now it was positively galloping and there was sweat pouring down from his hairline.

"W-what are you d-doing here?" he said, for once being the one that was stuttering.

"The Potions Master needs some ingredients. I had some spare time so I offered to go and get them for him. So...the usual, please."

Knowing that he probably had 'the usual' in his pockets, Ted twitched, and said, again without thinking;

"Go away!"

"What?"

"You heard!"

"Why should I..."

"GO AWAY!" he snapped.

A strange expression passed over Rupert's face; first of horror, then of suspicion, as if he could see something Ted couldn't. He gave a gracious but cautious nod and backed slowly out of the cellar.

The second the door shut, Ted blinked as if waking from a dream. What the hell had come over him this past hour? Seeing his best friend was ideal, why had he lost his temper? And what the hell had made him think he had the right to steal? There was a difference between employee privileges and earning yourself a one-way ticket to unemployment. He replaced them immediately as thoroughly as he could, and felt terrible both physically and mentally for the rest of the afternoon. As soon as he got home, he wrote a long-winded and polite apology to Rupert, and received a reply surprisingly quickly; that was Hogwarts for you.

_Dear Ted,_

_There's no need to be so apologetic. I went into Sheffield instead so everything's fine in the potions department, and though I was quite shocked by what happened in the cellar I think I can get over it without sulking or giving you the silent treatment. We have been friends for seventeen years now after all. _

_And it is precisely for that reason that my forgiveness is coming to you at a price. Ted, today I saw something I have never seen before in my life, let alone on you. The shadow of the wolf was on your face, Ted, and since I am fairly sure you're not a werewolf I demand you tell me what you've done to bring it there. I have my suspicions, of course, but I want to hear the truth from you. As soon as possible._

_I await your reply,_

_Rupert._


	7. Pursuing and Persevering

**Author's Note:** Hello again! It's been a while and I'm very sorry to test your patience, but you may be pleased to know this is the longest chapter so far. For your benefit here's a little summary of what happened in the last chapter; Ted has been avoiding all company due to his work on the potion, which was making Victoire very anxious. At one point he stayed up most of the night working, and so was a bit out of it and irritable at work the following morning, which lead to him being put to work in the stock room. He thought of trying to steal some ingredients, but was caught by his friend Rupert, who had come to collect ingredients on behalf of the Potions Master. After shouting at his friend to go away, Ted came to his senses and put the ingredients back. When he got home, there was a letter from Rupert asking him what was going on, because the shadow of the wolf had been on his face. Big thank you to all readers and reviewers as always, and to my beta.

And now here is a message from our beta, **ladyofthelight101**...

**Beta Note: **Hi, all! I have to apologize; this delay has been entirely my fault! CG gave me the chap about a week after the last post, but between computer problems (I went without any sort of word processor for about two months) and this thing called life (I'm in my first semester of college), I have been quite a while in getting this back to our amazing author. I'm so, so sorry! DO NOT BLAME CG! And so, without further ado…

**Chapter Seven: Persuing and Persevering**

_"You know I never approved of it," pursued Utterson, ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic. _

"…_Yes, certainly, I know that," said the doctor, a trifle sharply. "You have told me so."_

~ _Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_, chapter three.

Ted had known, deep down, that this would happen, though he hadn't known who it would be. Gran, Harry or Rupert, they never let him get away with keeping a problem to himself, and that had usually been good for him, until now. He had come this far and he didn't want it to end now. He wanted a child for himself and Victoire so badly he felt ridiculous about it sometimes. He'd stopped working at the children's home not only to concentrate on his project, but because the idea that those children didn't have mums and dads was somehow more painful to think about than it ever had been before.

He considered delaying it, but that was only prolonging the inevitable. He also considered lying, but there really was no alternative way of explaining why the shadow of the wolf had appeared on his face, if indeed it had, because he hadn't felt anything. He sat down on the table, moving his various flasks and test tubes out of the way, and wrote a hasty letter which, he hoped, would explain enough to satisfy his friend.

_Dear Rupert,_

_Alright. I'll tell you. But you must not breathe a word to anyone else, ESPECIALLY Victoire! I don't want her to worry about me; she has enough on her mind._

_Inspired by my pioneering grandfather, whose lab notes you passed on to me, I am starting a project to cure lycanthropy, to benefit not only the world by mine and Victoire's families. You may think this sounds insane but I really think my grandfather was on to something, and I want to continue his work. Before you say anything, I also want you to know that this is my project. I feel that as John Lupin's grandson, an apothecary and a metamorphmagus this is something only I can do, and I really don't need interference from others. No offence._

_I don't know what the shadow of the wolf thing was about. Are you sure that happened? I can't think why it would!_

_Glad to know all is forgiven, and hope to see you at least once before the wedding in December! _

_Ted_

Once that was over and sent, he felt a little more relaxed. He made himself a cup of tea and even considered taking a night off for the first time in a few weeks. _Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde _was gathering quite a layer of dust.

He closed his eyes for a second and let his body relax into its natural appearance - dark brown hair, brown eyes, small nose and mouth and tall, skinny body – before taking his mug of tea and lying down on his bed. He had just begun the third chapter of the book when he heard the familiar crackling sound of his fire flaring up by itself. Someone was Flooing him. He groaned.

"Please be Victoire, please be Victoire, please be Victoire…" he prayed as he made his reluctant way back to the sitting room, only to find, as he had feared, Rupert glaring at him from the fireplace. He'd seen that glare on the very first day they met when he had asked him what was wrong with his voice, and it hadn't changed.

"What is it?" he said immediately, forgetting formalities.

"I'm here to ask you what on earth you think you're doing."

"Didn't you get my letter? I think I explained quite clearly. I'm trying to cure lycanthropy. My grandfather's done the hard work, I've just been following it. I've corrected a few of his mistakes and I think I'm well on my way to achieving something incredible." He smiled.

"How do you know? Have you tested it on any werewolves?"

Ted hesitated. "Um…I…well…_he_ never did. He didn't want his son to get hurt if anything went wrong."

"I can understand not involving his son, but who got hurt instead? Him?"

Ted hadn't considered this. What if his grandfather had died as a result of his experiments? It had happened before to Carl Wilhelm Scheele, and, less famously, Luna Lovegood's mother. But that was impossible, there was nothing deadly in the ingredients, except perhaps wolfsbane, but aconite poisoning was rarely fatal.

"Look, I know there were risks involved, but he didn't want to let anyone down. You know how many people's lives are affected by lycanthropy? He didn't want to lead them on if he was going to fail. And neither do I, which is why I don't want anyone else to know about this. So can we put it behind us, at least until December?"

Rupert was speechless for a moment, though whether he was shocked, or struggling to speak, Ted couldn't tell. He still looked very disturbed.

"Are you worried about me?"

"No, I'm not worried about you. I'm t-t-terrified for you! As a fellow scientist, and as your friend. I see your reasoning behind this but…I just…have an uneasy feeling about it. That-that shadow of the wolf, for example. I r-really did see that, Tted."

Ted remembered at that point that he hadn't managed to expose the potion to the moon from rise to set, as his grandfather had specified. Perhaps that had caused the problem.

"I…made a little mistake with a potion yesterday. Perhaps that caused it. Hopefully that's just a one-off and it'll work its way out of my system…"

"…Ted, I really, really don't like the sound of that. I think you should stop."

The hell was he stopping, this far into it. The time and money could have been spent on the wedding, so this needed to be worth it somehow, even if it failed. The shadow of the wolf, frankly, didn't scare him one bit. Knowing this excuse wouldn't please anyone except him, he decided not to mention it.

"How's your niece?"

"Don't distract me."

"Oh, sor-_ree _if I can't ask about the kid I used to babysit…"

Rupert was still scrutinizing him. He'd have to try something else. "Fine. how's your love life?"

"…She's a little bit homesick, and in Slytherin they don't have much sympathy for those sorts of feelings. But she and I have met up a couple of times, secretly, to talk about her mum and dad and things."

"What, you and your girlfriend? Well, if that's what she wants, fine…"

"No!"

Ted laughed. "Sorry, couldn't resist. Poor little Chloe. Say hi to her for me…and…ask her if she remembers the Crazy Moose song. That always used to make her smile."

"OK…I'll try that," Rupert said. "And by the way, don't think I'm going to forget about what you're doing. I'll be keeping as close an eye as I can on you before December."

With that he disappeared. _Damn, _Ted thought. He didn't really feel motivated to do more work tonight, even though his grandfather's exercise book was lying enticingly open on the dining room table next to the plate he'd forgotten to take out. Then again, _Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde _was lying open on his pillow, and escaping into fiction was a pleasure he relished more and more now that he was extremely busy. Knowing he would probably regret this missed opportunity, he still meandered to bed, singing to himself.

"_There was a crazy moose, who liked to drink a lot of juice…"_

Things continued as normal right into November. Ted kept on experimenting; tempting as it was to skip over some of the little tests, he needed to observe certain reactions to recognise them in the future, especially when the tiniest mistake could undo everything he'd done. Victoire was still worried about him, even though she didn't always show it, but he decided, as a concession to his friend's concern, not to do everything at once and to actually schedule what he was going to do with every day. This allowed him to have one blissful day where there was nothing to do, and that even coincided with a Saturday. There was only one person he wanted to share that experience with.

Victoire came over very early in the morning, before he'd dressed. Sometimes he thought she did that on purpose, because being with him just as the day was starting somehow made them both feel very close and comfortable with each other. They eventually went into town, but only after an hour on the sofa, with Victoire lying in Ted's lap, listening to daytime shows on the wireless.

They spent the morning looking around Cardiff. Ted always found something or other he had never shown Victoire before, though sometimes what he found wasn't to her taste. They visited an art gallery and had some fun not only from admiring some of the paintings, but also from pretending they wanted to buy them, although they probably didn't look sophisticated enough anyway. They then went to the arts centre and enjoyed a free treasure hunt which didn't _technically _have an age limit. It was very reminiscent of the games they used to play as children, especially around the Burrow with its many hidden spaces. At one point they had to go up in an elevator. In the game, you had to use the private space to read your message from the Head of MCF5, which Ted attempted to do.

"Detective. This is a message from _our friends in the North_._ Emily_ has found the…"

He was distracted by Victoire planting a brief but warm kiss on his neck. Feeling her soft lips, he wondered how on earth he'd managed to avoid her for so long.

"Um…do you mind not reading over my shoulder? That was extremely private!"

She turned his face towards her and grinned before kissing him again, this time on the lips. "So was that."

Once they had received and enjoyed their lollipops for Excellent Detective Work, they had lunch in a cosy little café on a street corner. It was a little like Madam Puddifoot's, but the proprietor, who was still more of a 'Miss' than a 'Madam' knew the meaning of the word 'understated'. The paninis were nothing special but the slices – white chocolate and raspberry for Ted and granola for Victoire – were divine.

"You are ridiculous," Ted said, as he watched her sip a 'skinny' latte. "You don't need to lose weight; you're fine as you are."

"Yes I do," she said. "I bought the dress in a size smaller than my usual. _Chic _magazine says…"

He nearly spat out some of his delicious chocolate. "Victoire! I can't believe you still read that stupid magazine. It costs nearly a Galleon; think how much…er...bread you could buy with that!"

"Or _beer_, Ted? When we have a joint account, you can worry about my spending, but not before," she said coldly, but then smiled. "We're such an old married couple sometimes, aren't we?"

He chuckled, then took her hand and kissed it with emphasis, as if they were already in Italy, much to the embarrassment of the young café proprietor who promptly disappeared into the kitchen.

"But can't we act like newlyweds at the same time?" he said.

She pushed her knees towards his and puckered her lips for him. "I can't see the harm in it."

They had planned to do at least one useful thing and go to a stable and look at carriages for the wedding, but as soon as they got out of the café it began to pour with rain, and it wasn't just a shower either. Victoire had been keen to see all the Shire horses as she had as a little girl (her dad had had to lift her up so she could stroke them, they were so tall). They decided they could do it another afternoon, and considered calling it a day and Apparating back to Ted's flat. However, looking up at the intimidating yet somehow beautiful storm clouds, they decided it would be more fun to run.

They were wonderfully drenched when they got in, but it was warm and cosy in the flat. Seeing Victoire practically skipping into the flat, Ted was suddenly overcome with love and passion for her. He ran to her and hugged her tightly, planting kisses on her wet skin. She giggled, and put her arms over his.

"Is this down to my wet clothes?"

He nibbled her ear a little and caressed her. "Yes. They need to come off."

She laughed again. "Oh, but can't I use a Drying Spell?"

"Spell? What do you think you are, a witch?"

With that he spun her around and lifted her up. She was surprised; though they had a lot of passion between them, these things usually went at a gentler pace. He offered her a big smile and carried her into the bedroom, and in no time at all, the wet clothes were left to the floor.

He was woken up by her at six o'clock that evening. She really was so gentle sometimes; he only felt the slightest tickle of her hair, and her voice was a whisper.

"Do you want to have dinner at mine? Dominique's making Mexican. It's not to be missed."

He turned and looked at her, still half asleep. "I'll go anywhere you wanna take me."

The evening was truly fun. Dominique had read every Sherlock Holmes book and story he had given her, and she was still asking for more. Any future Lupin-Weasley children would undoubtedly grow up with a detective obsession, which Victoire wasn't sure she approved of until Ted told her that his mum had been able to quote the books backwards as a girl and had grown up to be an Auror. Mexican meals were also messy enough to give the couple even more excuses to be sickeningly sweet in front of other people; _"I am simply helping him deal with that salsa, Dom…"_

Ted didn't go home that night, and he was delighted with that result. The two women begged him to accompany them to Sunday lunch with their parents and it was a tempting offer (Bill had learnt his cooking skills from Molly Weasley, after all) but there was work to be done. He regretted it sorely as soon as he returned to his flat, and even though he got the day's tests done he felt very depressed until a surprising letter came for him in the evening.

_Dear Ted,_

_Hi, it's me! I know I haven't written to you in ages but Uncle Rupert said you said hi to me, and I wanted to say hi back. I was so happy to be reminded of the Crazy Moose song too._

_I'm really enjoying my lessons here. I love Transfiguration and Charms. I would say I loved Defence Against the Dark Arts but it's a bit of an embarrassing experience for me. I also love the food soooo much. The only thing that makes me sad is that I don't have any real friends yet. My old best friend is in Gryffindor now and her new friends have told her she can't speak to me. _

_I can't stop missing my mum and dad and I know the other girls in my dorm think I'm a baby. Sometimes I think I'm really a Hufflepuff, not a Slytherin, I was just in a bad mood on Sorting Day._

_Sorry to turn this into an agony letter, but my uncle's advice doesn't suit me at all. He says I should forget my mum and dad and have fun. But I don't want to forget them. Help please?_

_Write back soon._

_Chloe_

Ted felt sorry for the poor girl. He also remembered his first year at Hogwarts. Yes, making friends with Rupert had helped an awful lot, and he was in a House that tended to reach out to anyone and everyone, but there were still nights when he'd missed Gran desperately, and almost wanted to drop everything and make a long journey back to her. He decided to tell Chloe that she had no reason to be embarrassed about missing her parents, and her homesickness was only a sign that she had come from a loving family (and that was true; he still vaguely knew her parents despite their careers).

After finishing his letter to her, which also contained the lyrics to the Baby Bumblebee song – ideal for eleven-year-old Slytherins – he decided to have an early night. He also decided to visit Gran at the soonest opportunity, as he may not have been a child anymore, but he loved dearly and he hoped that she knew that and that she would never think he'd forgotten her. He went to bed, once again drinking a potion and leaving the bezoars on his bedside table, feeling guilty for neglecting her lately and thinking about when he would see her again.

The following day was horrific. He woke up at the wrong end of his bed, something which had only happened twice in his life. It seemed he had been sweating all night even though it was November, and his skin felt cold and sticky. His limbs ached as if he'd walked miles the day before. He had also morphed a bit in his sleep; the sideburns were back again and his nose looked a bit larger. It was raining again and work was so quiet his boss asked him if he wanted to polish some silver spoons. He was glad to be paid for a relatively no-brainer task, but was shocked when he saw that his hands were red and raw afterwards.

When he got home he had yet another letter waiting for him, and this was especially surprising as it was from Gran.

_Teddy,_

_Would you like to come over for dinner tonight? I could use some company._

_Lots of love, Gran_

Ted thought it was a strange coincidence that Gran should invite him round for dinner just when he thought he should go and see her. But he was grateful for the opportunity, and he really missed her cooking.

When he arrived, he expected that he would breathe in the familiar smells of the house, see the old family photos and flowery wallpaper and hear Gran's voice, and he'd suddenly feel a huge sense of safety and of being loved. But this didn't quite happen when his Gran opened the door. She looked a lot like her usual self, but she was a little pale, and somehow seemed very old.

_Oh Merlin, _he thought, _she's ill again. _Gran had fallen seriously ill when he had been in his last year at Hogwarts, and it had been the worst time of his life. In the end his friends and family were more worried about him than her.

She smiled softly. "Hello, Teddy, sweetheart. Come and give your gran a hug."

He did so immediately, not letting his uneasy feelings show. "I've missed you lately, Gran."

"I've missed you too, darling," she said, kissing his cheek. "I've been lonely these past few weeks."

"Well, you've got me here now," he said cheerfully. "What's for tea?"

"Oh, I've got us some pie. There's a lovely little restaurant in town that delivers them to your door, and I thought we both deserved a treat, since you've been working so hard and I've…well…" she trailed off.

This was even stranger. Gran_ always_ cooked. It was her art. Especially when it came to her grandson; she was determined to nourish him well.

The pie was delivered at seven o'clock exactly, and it was Ted that went to the door so Gran could get comfortable in her armchair. The delivery girl's name was Charlie, and she was from a little place called 'House of Pies'; not, as Ted had feared, some cheap 'Meals-on-Brooms' pie was huge and delicious, and, to Gran's delight, it even had Gruyere baked into the crust. She seemed a lot happier to have him with her, and listened eagerly to everything he had to say, especially when he talked about his recent day with Victoire as she was still convinced he was a workaholic.

Yet there was still something not quite right. Whenever Ted attempted to steer the conversation away from him and his life Gran very quickly steered it back again. She hadn't even properly told him how she was. In the end, just when they were starting on pudding, he decided to bite the wand and ask her.

"Gran, is there a specific reason why you invited me today?"

"I told you," she said, though her voice wavered a little. "I just wanted some company."

"OK," he murmured, not wanting to push her further. "I'm glad to provide it."

They sat in silence for a moment, and then suddenly Gran put her dish down and looked her grandson in the eyes. She looked serious, yet slightly vulnerable, and Ted was painfully reminded of that moment she'd come out of the Healer's office…

"Teddy…something happened last night. It wasn't a big deal; as you can see I'm still in one piece, but…I was a bit shaken by it, and I thought maybe being with you would cheer me up. And it has, of course," she added, sincerely.

"What happened?" he asked. Sometimes he asked too many questions, he knew, but 'something' wasn't good enough.

She sighed. "Alright…last night, at about three in the morning I was woken up by someone knocking at my door. And they weren't just tapping, they were really thumping, thumping, as if they were using their whole arm to knock. I didn't know what to think or do so I just sat up in bed and waited a minute or two for it to stop. And that was when the sounds started. Whoever was down there started to get impatient, but they didn't speak, they just sought of…murmured, like…you're going to think this is ridiculous, it reminded me of a sort of dying animal. Or perhaps an-an Inferi. Your imagination runs away with you at that time of night. But I decided that I was a witch, I'd lived through two wars, I could at least summon up the courage to have a look. So I took my wand, and I went to the landing and shone a light towards the door, and for a brief second I saw the shape of tall, skinny fellow leaning against my door, with his arms and legs out like he was only half-conscious. I screamed and dropped my wand, but when I picked it up again he was gone. I guess I must have scared him off. But I didn't go back to sleep, and I…I'm afraid he'll come back."

Her old eyes filled with tears and she started to tremble. Ted immediately went over and put his arms around her.

"It's alright, Gran. Probably just some drunk Muggle on his way back from the pub, that's all. He won't come back."

"But I'll dream of him tonight, I'm sure I will…" she said.

He hugged her a little more tightly. "I'll make you a Dreamless Sleep Draught. You'll get at least ten hours of rest, and that'll make you feel much better. I'll also stay the night if you're really worried. But you're strong, Gran. You've been through so much, you can get through this."

She gave him a look of pure love. "Thank you, Teddy. I love you."

"I love you too, Gran."

He made her the Draught, and made sure she was sound asleep before going to his own old bedroom, which had once been his mother's. He sat in his old window seat for a moment and began to wind down and think about what had actually happened to his gran. The moon was waxing and cast a beautiful light onto the garden.

_If only I'd gone to see her last night,_ he thought. _I could have gotten out of bed for her, I could have protected her from her fear. _

He pictured this man, this villain who'd managed to frighten one of the strongest people he had ever known. The image came easily; all lanky with long arms and prominent cheekbones…

Eventually he decided he was better off putting it behind him too. He snuggled down in his old bed and pulled the quilt over his head, and his large feet stuck out in the cold.


	8. Madness

**A/N: **Sorry for lateness, but this is a moment you've all been waiting for! This chapter was beta-read by the excellent rayslady, aka Acci0Sanity. Thanks to **saskiawrites**, **Kerichi** and **TheSecretWeasley5147**, who reviewed last chapter, and to all readers!

**Chapter Eight - Madness**

_I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness._

It was now December, and with two weeks to go before the wedding the stress was mounting on Victoire. Maman was sending owls and Floo-ing every day to discuss this detail and that detail, and though she hadn't wanted to decide anything without Ted he was letting this opportunity down for himself. She sent him message after message but he never got back to her in time, and most of the time his answers were vague and pointless; "Do what YOU want", "Are we getting a little bride and groom on the cake?" and worst of all "Ask Rupert, or Harry". One day, on her lunch break, which was roughly the same time as his, she went round to his flat in Cardiff and banged on the door in desperation.

"THEODORE REMUS LUPIN! OPEN UP! NOW!"

When there was no answer, and _Homenum Revelio _revealed that he wasn't in anyway, her scream turned to a whimper, and she sighed. "Oh for God's sake...I can't put the world on hold for you Ted. I want my wedding, and I can't do it on my own."

She caught herself. What had she been thinking? Even he was in, what good was whining at him about 'her' wedding going to do? Perhaps her 'fly' was better caught with honey than with vinegar.

On her way home she went through Diagon Alley, and to the Princess Eugenie, Auntie Audrey's restaurant. She knew this was a long shot, but it was worth a try...

"Do you have a table for two for tonight?"

The maitre d' hesitated. "We are nearly fully booked..."

Victoire, cringing inwardly at herself, subtly show him a blank gold card. It was technically illegal to have a favourite system, especially when those favourites went as far as nieces and close friends of the family, but every business in Diagon Alley did it, and while the Weasleys and Potters generally held back from using theirs, it was useful in emergencies.

"We have a booth," he said. "What time?

"Make it eight," she said. She would give Ted plenty of time.

"May I take your orders in advance?"

She thought for a moment, then said; "No starters, two rare steaks, and two chocolate mousse cakes. And...a bottle of dry white wine. Preferably French. Thank you very much."

"Thank you, Madam," he said. "We will see you tonight."

The second stage of the plan was to go to Slug and Jiggers and see Ted. She went to the counter, where young Sammy was working. He said Ted was down in the stockroom again, but he would pass on any message, so Victoire pulled out the notebook and pen she had brought to make wedding plans and wrote a short letter.

_Ted,_

_I came to visit you today but you're such a busy bee I decided not to disturb you. Would you like to meet up for dinner at the Princess Eugenie at eight tonight? We could go on to a bar or to my place depending on how you feel. _

_Hoping to see you tonight,_

_Victoire xxx_

She decided not to mention wedding plans; her main priority was to see him again.

After work she went back to the flat and sat around for two hours waiting for his reply. She couldn't help it hanging everything on it, as if whether Ted came for dinner or not was the ultimate sign of whether he was going to be a good husband. Dominique, who was in the middle of some important work, tried to warn her she was going about this badly, only for Victoire to offer to make her, because that was the only thing she could summon the concentration to do.

In the end, she did get a reply from Ted. It was just a 'Got your message. See you tonight' but it filled her with hope.

"Thank goodness for that," Dominique said from her place on the sofa..

"What are you sitting around drinking tea for?" Victoire said. "Come and help me do my hair!"

At eight o'clock, she arrived at the Princess Eugenie. It was not an exaggeration to say she looked beautiful; she had used a wax to make her hair shine, and worn her sapphire jewellery to complement her lovely blue eyes. Her dress was a long black one with sequins that Grandmere had chosen for her when they last went shopping in London. She noticed heads turned when she walked to her table, and felt proud. She hoped Ted would make an effort too; the only thing she enjoyed more than looking good was looking good with him.

After ten minutes, the wine arrived. Twenty more minutes and she had her steak, and she told the waiters to keep the other meal hot for her companion. She wondered what was holding him up; probably the Knight Bus, since he was cheap enough to use it, or one of his hopeless friends asking a favour. Ted Lupin didn't know when to say 'no' sometimes.

Then the chocolate mousse cake came, and she pictured him as if he was there. He ordered it every time and his face would light up as soon as it was placed in front of him like a little boy who'd got some ice cream. Yet the chair was empty.

He had _never _done this before. Not even before they were going out, let alone two weeks before they were married. She really had no idea how to deal with the situation; part of her was sure that there had been some mistake and she'd missed a message, because he could never just leave her like this. Above all she felt shock, and focused on that feeling. It was a safeguard against the pain.

She stayed in the restaurant as long as she could. She didn't want to screw up her diet so kept the waiters busy by ordering more wine. Couples and families came and went, and she got a few odd glances, though they were mostly occupied with their own business. Eventually the place emptied, and it was so quiet she could here the waiters and waitresses whispering about her. The lights in every corner except hers were turned off, and with that she wanted to cry.

A solitary figure crossed the room. Her frilly collar was very familiar.

"Auntie Audrey?" Victoire called.

Audrey turned. "Victoire?" She came into the light. "Merlin, what are you doing here all alone at this time of night?"

Victoire swallowed. "Ted and I were meant to be on a date tonight. But as you can see he... failed to show."

Audrey sat down. "Oh...oh, and so soon before your wedding..."

"I know," Victoire said very quietly.

"Is it his work? Because I _know _what that's like. Percy," She lowered her voice, even though there was no one to hear her, "stayed at work for _two hours _after I sent my Patronus to tell him I was in labour with the girls. He said he thought it was alright if I was just in the early stages."

"Oh God...no way!"

"It's true. I didn't let him forget it until they were two."

Victoire thought this was very funny, but knew there was more to Ted's absence than work. There was still _that issue _hanging in the air that they had never truly discussed, and which, for all their attempts to ignore it, would come back into the open as soon as they said 'I do'. Perhaps it was the wine influencing her, or the thought of the cold, dark and lonely winter night at home waiting, but she decided there and then that she couldn't bottle it up any more.

"About six months ago Ted and I found out that we can't have a baby."

She would have broken down there and then had Audrey not immediately gripped her hands as soon as she said this.

"Oh, sweetheart...have you kept this to yourselves all this time?"

"Mmm-hmm..." She expected Audrey's reaction to be 'Why? but instead all she said was;

"I understand, love. I mean, you're a Weasley. Infertility in a Weasley is just unthinkable. How will the family react? You don't want to let anyone down. And then you have to face the fact that your dream family might not be a reality at all, and you'll spend your life just watching while all your friends and family have baby after beautiful baby whenever they like."

Victoire was nodding. "Yes...that's pretty much why we haven't been telling anyone. I'm sorry if it was a bit rude, but...that just seemed like the right thing..."

Audrey squeezed her niece's hands. "Victoire, do you remember how old you were when Percy and I got married?"

"Um...I must have been nine. Teddy missed the wedding because he was starting Hogwarts."

"And do you remember how old you were when Molly and Lucy were born?"

"Eighteen. It was just after my NEWTS."

"It took eight years." Audrey said. "Eight long, hard years of watching and waiting, of friends periodically asking 'Do you have any _news _for us?' and others praising our decision not to have any children as if we never wanted to...we lost our tempers with it all more than once, and we both wanted to give up several times, but you know what? Ultimately we kept believing it would happen, and now we have two beautiful, healthy girls, and we love them more than anything in the world. And if it can happen for me and Percy, it can happen for you and Teddy. I know all this sounds ridiculous and idealistic now, but trust me. Keep hoping, and it will happen."

Victoire smiled through the film of tears over her eyes. "I didn't think anyone else could understand..."

"There's always someone out there who understands. I'll be here whenever you need me," Audrey said.

When Victoire came back to the flat, Dominique was still up. Her boyfriend, Henry, was round, and they were getting cosy on the sofa. She decided to slip past without noticing, but Henry saw her out of the corner of his eye and said; "Hey, Victoire."

"Hey, Henry," she said, quietly.

"You've got a letter," he said.

"It's from Ted," Dominique said. "It was his owl."

Victoire went across the front room, grabbed the letter, and headed to her room to leave Dominique and Henry in peace. It was a short letter, but it warmed her heart.

_Victoire,_

_I am sorry about tonight. Very very sorry. Something came up that I can't really explain in writing, but don't worry, everything's fine. I know you're angry and you won't forgive me for some time, so to make it up to you in some way I did something even more ridiculous and booked us some dance lessons for the wedding reception. I used to think we'd be alright on our own, but the other day I caught myself dancing to the radio and realised I had absolutely no rhythm and looked like someone's sad middle-aged uncle. The lessons are taking place on Saturday at three, so I thought we could meet up for lunch in London at 12 and make our way there once the food's gone down. _

_Forgive your fool of a groom, he does try really hard most of the time._

_Love,_

_Ted _

_PS. I forgot to mention that our dance teachers, Mr and Mrs von Krahl, used to be pros on the international competitive circuit. They performed at the Minister's Variety last year! Their fees are actually insane, but don't worry yourself, I persuaded them to give me a discount because they could see how much I loved you. _

_PPS. Alright, I admit it, they're friends of mine. I recently helped their daughter get over homesickness with a song about a crazy moose. That's kids for you._

Victoire laughed out loud. She could definitely believe Ted was fine if he was writing about a crazy moose. An image of him as the 'fun dad' came into her head, and for once, she didn't tell herself it couldn't happen. She had a little dance around her room in her slippers, imagining she was in her fiancé's arms.

"One two three, one two three, one two three...Thank you very much, Mrs von Krahl, I've always been graceful, I've got Veela blood..."

------

Ted's standing Victoire up was not an accident, but it was also not a act of malice or absence of love. But as soon as he got home and smelled the gentle scent of aconite all through the kitchen and dining room he realised the potion had reached a crucial stage. The next thing he realised was that the aconite was making him feel quite sick, but then so did James Potter's feet.

Making a powerful potion was like making a luxury cake. It was an intense process but also sometimes as gratifying and exciting as the product itself. Ted lit candles around the kitchen knowing he wouldn't have a second to spare as it started getting dark, and pulled out the heavy duty cauldron. He assembled the ingredients in a neat line and measured them exactly to the decimal point. Then he got to work.

The potion was like a living organism. When it was a crude base, it sat gently and soft swirls of coloured smoke came from it like a hot drink, but as soon as a certain chunk of metal was added it bubbled and ferociously and smoke rolled out of it like thunderclouds. Bits of it spat onto Ted's clothes and over his goggles but he barely noticed them, even when they burned holes in his sleeves. Sweat was pouring from his hairline and he was still panting even though he had opened the window. There were moments when dizziness seized him like he'd suddenly been turned upside down, then let go again, his pulse raced, pains flared up in his head and joints and he knew that there was an artery that had popped up in his forehead, but he relished all of it as much as the potion itself. He folded in some ingredients with raucous enthusiasm then gently guided others as if he was only helping them. It was a product of his own heart and soul. When he breathed the steam away from it to examine its colour he imagined he was an artist blowing charcoal dust from a masterpiece, or far better, Neptune blowing clouds from the sea.

The result looked almost like a drink, if it weren't for the disgusting smell of aconite. Just as his grandfather had described, its texture was like milk, but its colour was a dark black-brown, like the fizzy stuff in red cans Muggles were fond of. It had a white rim around the edges and the occasional tiny bubble floated to the surface. He needed to wait for it to cool before sampling it, and his eyes drifted to the clock.

It was nine o'clock. The time had flown by and he had missed his and Victoire's dinner date. He was crushed. He would never have intentionally done something like that to her, but it was too late to go back now. He couldn't tell her the truth either, it would ruin the wedding surprise and she might not even believe him. She might think he was having an affair. Whatever she thought, she would not forgive him easily.

He thought of how he could make it up to her. One of her biggest complaints was that he wasn't helping enough to organise the wedding and make it the fantastic day she wanted. Part of it was his fault for making himself so busy, but part of it was also her being a bossy bride. This had to match that, this family shouldn't sit with that one because they supported different Quidditch teams, the DJ could not be from any old company because what if he didn't have songs they wanted, and their first dance needed to be almost professional in quality...

Ted had an idea then, and noticing it was late at night, he went straight to the Floo to contact Christabelle von Krahl (her real name was Martha, but only close friends were allowed to call her that) at her home, which was the same place it had been years before. She was very grateful for the recent consolation he have given to her daughter, and offered him a discounted price to say thanks. She also added that he'd see her at the wedding.

By that time the potion had cooled to room temperature, and Ted prepared to drink it. He wished he could make a ceremony of it, but in the complete chaos of the flat, there was really no space for one. He raised it to the absent moon and drank.

He expected a burning pain in his throat, but instead it was all in his mouth. His mouth filled with saliva like he was going to be sick, and he raced to the kitchen sink and spat repeatedly in it, but there was no relief, and soon it was tinged with red. He could feel liquid at the corners of his mouth, and took a break from the sink to see streaks of bloody saliva flowing down his neck past the collar of his robes. He gazed open-mouth at his reflection, and though it was barely lit in the dark window by the candles, he saw the unmistakeable sight of four pointed teeth, two on each row. Like a wolf's.

It was then that Ted finally understood what he had done. The random Metamorphosing; the ripping of Lucy's hood with his nails; the yellow eyes, facial hair and overlarge feet and hands; going to see Gran in the middle of the night unconsciously...and of course, the shadow of the wolf. He realised why his grandfather had suddenly halted his experiments and attempted to hide them away so no one could follow his example again.

He hadn't destroyed lycanthropy at all; he'd created it. In liquid form. If someone like Greyback got hold of it every man, woman and child would end up a monster. Mr John Lupin, and now Mr Theodore Lupin, had become the perfect help to the very things they wanted to rid the world of.

Ted was filled with more horror and shame than he had ever felt in his life. There was no way he could tell anyone about this, how could they understand? Or even if they could understand, how could they forgive him? There was only one thing to do. Destroy the potion and wait for the next full moon. He grabbed the calendar and flicked forward two pages to see when it was.

December twenty-second. The wedding day.


	9. Fighting the Moonlight

**A/N: **Happy Easter! As a present, I'm giving you the moment you've all been waiting for. A bit spooky, but hopefully you will like it. Thank you to my lovely betareader **rayslady**, also known as **Acci0Sanity, **and a special thank you to **Kerichi**, **saskiawrites** and **ladyofthelight101**, who reviewed last chapter!

Chapter Nine-Fighting the Moonlight

_Deep in the dark, you'll surrender your heart..._

Apart from being orphaned before he could walk, Ted Lupin's life had been relatively free of disasters. Of course there were a few episodes in his life that had been extremely painful; when he was seven, James was born and his outings with Harry changed from once a week to once every six weeks. After second year, Rupert came to stay with him and Gran, which would have been great if his parents hadn't been in the middle of a vicious divorce. In his OWLs he got only an A in Charms despite working extremely hard, and realised he couldn't be an Auror. During NEWTs, Gran became seriously ill and he couldn't be with her over Christmas. And finally, six months ago, he and Victoire found out they could not have children. All of these situations had required a lot of hope, patience, time and coming to terms with the fact that magic couldn't fix everything, but a resolution had always been in sight. He had come out happy and so had everyone he knew.

This situation was something quite different. He didn't know if his life would ever be the same. Who would understand it? And further, forgive it? He knew Victoire had no issue with werewolves in general, but a self-made one was quite different. It was likely he would lose his job. Rupert would say 'I told you so', and Harry and Gran, who normally loved and forgave everything he did, would no doubt be disappointed. They had always said that he should look forward in life, that his parents wouldn't want him to worry and upset himself over what they had been through. And indeed what would they think, if they could see this? They had done everything they could to keep him safe and happy in life, and he'd thrown that away.

He had let everyone he knew down.

However, he had also learnt from Harry, Gran, and twenty-eight years of being English that the thing to do was to carry on. He put together a four-step plan. First, he tidied his flat thoroughly for the first time in far too long - if anyone asked, it was for Victoire when she moved in. He bundled all his notes together and locked them away in his old Weasley's Wizard Wheezes Secret Stuff Stasher (for Magical Mischief Makers). The only thing he couldn't get rid of in the end was the smell of aconite, though he had always had a sensitive nose, and he began to wonder if, over time, it had somehow seeped into his skin. Secondly, he went to the Local Authority and found out how he would get onto the Werewolf Registry (he was legally obliged to register after his first transformation). Thirdly, he put together a Wolfsbane potion, without too much fuss - ironically, he had chosen it for his N.E.W.T exam ten years before, in honour of his dad.

The final stage of the plan was to ask Victoire if they could move the wedding forward a few hours, but when he saw her reply;

_I SERIOUSLY hope you are joking. Getting married at night was your idea, after all. Love V xxx_

he realised there was no option to him that couldn't end in disaster, and he was, quietly, devastated.

During the day, he did a good job at pretending he was fine. As everyone knew he was about to get married, he got more and more attention every day, even from people who normally barely acknowledged his existence. It would have been wonderful had every mention of the word 'wedding' not given him a frightening reminder of what else was happening on December twenty-second. There were moments when he could hardly help looking nervous, but this only encouraged them. Especially James Potter, who surprised him with a visit one afternoon (that was another thing - as a groom-to-be, every aspect of his life was now a public free-for-all).

"Come on, you two have been together for...how long?"

"Nearly eleven years. Engaged for three."

"And you're still nervous? I mean, marriage is a bit scary I'll admit, but after eleven years..."

"I'm not nervous. I'm absolutely fine."

James's easy tone became serious. "...why, then, do you look so worn out?"

The days he could handle. The nights he could not. Even though he was often so exhausted he could cry, he was sleeping for about an hour at a time now, if at all. Every night he woke up sweating and panicking. One night, half-awake, he sat bolt-upright and shouted 'Victoire!' to the darkness. That had been the night he dreamt he had bitten her. Most nights, which were so very long in the winter, ended with him watching the clock and flicking through his grandfather's notebook again as if a solution would jump out at him. He knew every word by now, but it was the only solution he could think of, and it was less guilt-inducing than the picture of Victoire on his bedside table.

"...I've just been trying to do some overtime before the honeymoon, that's all."

James raised his eyebrows, then laughed. "Merlin's beard. Take a break for once in your life." He reached across the dining room table and dragged Ted's cup of coffee away from him, as if he knew it was the fifth one of the day. "I'm not joking."

The opportunity for a little relaxation came in their dance lessons a week before the wedding. Mr and Mrs von Krahl lived in London, so Ted and Victoire met up in Regent's Park before going there. It was still lovely in the winter.

"You do look tired," she said. Instead of wondering why, though, she simply said; "My poor Teddy" and wrapped her arms around him, and he felt so much love from her and for her that he had to swallow a lump in his throat.

"I'm sorry I upset you the other day," he told her quietly. "I didn't mean to be annoying."

"No, it's alright," she said. "I was a bit stressed at the time."

They walked, hand in hand, towards a suitable street corner to catch the Knight Bus. "You know," she said, "I passed Baker Street on the way here...where your Sherlock Holmes lives."

He smiled. He hadn't thought she cared about something like that.

Ted had used his personal connections to Mr and Mrs von Krahl (being Martha's brother's best friend helped) to get a lesson with a very relaxed charged, considering the usual rate. The reason it was so cheap was that it was hosted in their own flat instead of a dance studio. They met Christabelle at her front door; physically she greatly resembled her brother, bu even from first sight seemed about a hundred times more confident. She took them to a wooden floor which normally served for the living room. Victoire was a little surprised at first, but an informal dance lesson was better than none.

"I hope you don't mind," Christabelle said, "but you'll have an audience."

Ted and Victoire exchanged looks of surprise and fear, until they saw Mr von Krahl come in. He had their audience, a small boy, resting in his arms.

"I'm Ben," he said. "And this is Isaac. His grandma couldn't look after him this afternoon, so he's just going to watch quietly, let's hope."

Isaac, who was about two years old with chubby cheeks, big round green eyes and light brown hair, looked straight at Victoire. Her face lit up as if it this was some kind of privilege. "_Hello,_" she said to him, with a little wave.

"He's also a very harsh judge. Never gives more than five, mostly because he doesn't know what comes after it yet."

"I'll try my best to impress you," Victoire told him, sweetly and sincerely.

Ted shot a glance at her and laughed quietly. She'd get over the novelty before long.

"So, Martha, Chloe not around then?" he asked.

"No, she's visiting a friend," Christabelle said, and there was a little warmth in her voice that showed how proud she was of this. "The other girl's a Hufflepuff, you know how friendly they are! They met in Gobstones Club."

"Gobstones Club! Those were the _days_! Shall we play Gobstones after this?" Ted asked.

Christabelle laughed. "Do you want to dance or have a good old chat?

Victoire, whose attention had been entirely focused on little Isaac, started and turned around. "Dancing! Yes! Sorry!"

Ben set Isaac down on the sofa, and Christabelle went over to the record player.

"We had a listen to your song," she said. "It's a bit different to most wedding songs, but it's original, and we actually liked it a lot. So, we put this routine together for you. I promise it doesn't have too much - what was it you said, Ted? 'Swan Lake malarkey'. We'll just show you the complete thing before we start, so you can point out any bits you don't like..."

Ted and Victoire sat down on the sofa to watch, and Ted didn't fail to notice the way Victoire seemed to want to pull Isaac into her lap. Once the first bars of their song started playing, though, she was all business, and though he would have liked to watch her reaction, he decided she'd probably like it better if he tried to watch and learn.

Ted and Victoire's choice of song was unorthodox, but they had talented dance teachers, and the finished routine was undeniably beautiful. It was soft and intimate and intimate and stylish without looking like it would make their guests yawn or cringe, and, as they had wanted above all, it was a loving dance. They were intuitively aware of each other's every move, and while it was a very smoothly choreographed piece, Ted noticed they had time to relax a little and smile at each other, and sometimes it seemed like they weren't performing at all; their feet brushed the ground so gently. Victoire might have wanted to impress people, but all Ted wanted was a short dance to show everyone their love, and from the looks of it they would both be satisfied. When he saw Victoire make the tiniest gasp when Ben lifted Christabelle slightly off the ground, he knew too that it she was already seeing them in their dance teachers' place. For a second he felt pleased with himself for choosing something that would make her so happy, and then was suddenly overwhelmed with guilt, because in ten days' time 'happy' would be the last thing she felt about him.

"OK, any problems?"

Ted blinked. It was over all of a sudden.

"No!" Victoire said, both a bit too quickly. "It was beautiful. Just...perfect! You're so in tune with each other, how do you do that?"

"Little signals," Christabelle said, rather seriously. "For example, if I want him to let go of me, I flatten my hand, like this." She then smiled a little. "But, of course, being married for twelve years helps a bit, too."

Ted had little confidence in his dancing ability, and felt especially nervous at the thought of hand signals - until he felt Victoire's hand on his.

"We can give it a try, can't we, Ted?" she said, with a hopeful look in her eyes.

The things we do for love, he thought. "Alright. Five, six, seven, eight..."

The next few hours were a mixture of laughter, getting tied into uncomfortable knots, flourishing both too much and not enough, using lots of words like 'Sashay!' and 'Jazz Hands!' way out of their correct context, and paying far too much attention to the finer details. Christabelle and Ben did their best to let Ted and Victoire learn by themselves, but were happy to repeat certain moves as often as needed (they insisted they had taught worse, but Ted was not so sure) and sometimes physically pull them in the right direction so that on the day they didn't spin into a collision with some poor auntie. It was also just as well they had made up the routine, as it became quite clear that the bride and groom couldn't have sorted one out on their own.

"You've got the wrong arm, Ted! Again!"

"I'm sorry, I find it easier with this arm!"

"Wrong arm!" Isaac suddenly shouted from the sofa. "Wrong arm, Ted!"

"Do you mind?" Ted said indignantly, though he laughed. "He's probably better at this than I am, actually."

"Just relax, Ted," Ben advised. "People won't notice these little mistakes, or won't mind them, if you look like you know what you're doing."

"But I don't, that's the trouble!"

"_You're_ also supposed to be leading _her_..." Christabelle said.

"Yeah, I could do without the sarcasm, _Martha_."

When they were next away in a twirl, Victoire whispered. "Why do you keep calling her Martha? I swear to Merlin your sense of humour is _bizarre_."

"Because that's her name!" Ted said, enjoying himself. "Isn't it, Martha?"

Christabelle, whose real name was indeed Martha, sighed. "It's true. My family likes their old-fashioned names. Seriously, it was only my intervention that stopped Rupert from being called Aubrey. I felt a bit out of place amongst the Belindas and Camillas in this business, so I chose something with a bit more glamour."

"_I _never wanted her to change her name," Ben said. "Even professionally. What name is on our wedding certificate? Martha. Chloe's birth certificate? Martha. Isaac's adoption certificate? _Martha_."

"Isaac's adopted?" Victoire said, sounding surprised, though she recognised her mistake and cringed a little immediately afterwards.

"Yes," Martha and Ben said, casually.

Ted saw Victoire's gaze turn to the toddler watching them on the sofa, and wondered what she was thinking. He had always known about the adoption, because Rupert had told him about his nephew, and before that had asked about the adoption process on their behalf. He remembered, months ago, what she had said when he suggested adoption; she wanted her own child, and if she couldn't have that then she wouldn't have any.

"If you don't mind me asking," Victoire said. "what persuaded you to adopt?"

Ted stared at her incredulously.

"What?" she whispered. "It was your idea..."

"Well...we decided about six years ago that we wanted another child, but then three years went by and, well, nothing happened. We were ready to give up, when suddenly we thought 'Actually, there are kids waiting for a family out there'," Ben said.

"Too many," Ted said.

"The more we thought about it, the more right it seemed. So we filled out the forms, went through all the inspections and judging panels and things, and then eventually one day last year our social worker came over and showed us Isaac's profile. And...it all went from there, really."

"And no one...notices that he's not yours?" Victoire asked, hesitantly.

"Well, sometimes they do," Martha admitted. "Neither of us have brown hair, or green eyes. But most of the time it doesn't make a difference. As far as we're concerned, he's just as much our son as Chloe is our daughter. And if people have a problem, well...they can learn to deal with it themselves."

"You don't mind me asking, do you?" she said. "It's just that...you know, I come from a very fertile family, and I sometimes wonder what everyone would think if we..."

"There's no reason not to, really," Ben said. "Of course when we got married we wanted our own child - and we had one - but sometimes you have to sort of..."

"Let someone else in?" Ted said, thinking of the Weasleys and Potters. Even though he wasn't biologically related to them (at least, not for a few branches of family tree), he still felt like any other member of the family.

"Yeah, pretty much."

Victoire looked deep in thought. "Thank you," she said. "That's really interesting."

By the time Ted and Victoire had learned their routine (their teachers were too proud to let them go without learning it, even if it did mean delaying their dinner) it was dark outside and the stars could just about be seen with the light of the Muggle street lamps.

"Thank you so much," Victoire said, as they were leaving. "It'll just make our reception that little bit more special."

"You're welcome," Martha said. "It's been fun. You guys are a lot friendlier than some of the people we get, seriously."

"We'll see you at your wedding!" Ben said.

"Oh, speaking of which," Martha said. "Ted...I can meet up with Rupert before he has to make his speech if you want. Just to make sure he's OK. He stutters when he gets nervous, and if he stutters through his speech he'll be so upset with himself. I've still got the breathing exercises and things."

Ted laughed incredulously. "Yeah, I remember you forcing them on him in first year. No, no, it'll be fine. He manages alright at Hogwarts, after all."

"Ted," Victoire said. "A room of a hundred and fifty strangers is quite different to a class full of students you see every week. I really think..."

"I believe in him," Ted interrupted. "He'll manage alright on his own. Just watch."

As they walked back towards Regent's Park, Ted let Victoire lean on him. She wrapped her arms tightly around his, and gave him a radiant smile.

"That was wonderful," she said. "I felt like Cinderella when you lifted me up. You're a bit of a clumsy prince, but you're still charming."

"Thank you," Ted said. He didn't know what on earth she meant by Cinderella, but it sounded nice.

"It's quite late," she said. "Far too late for cooking. What do you say we pop to my parents' for dinner?"

The idea of eating by a roaring fire with the sound of the sea outside was too good to resist. He wrapped his arms around her, and they Apparated to Shell Cottage.

Victoire had thought that with that, all of Ted's odd behaviour would come to an end, or at least get a bit better. Unfortunately she had deluded herself; after Sunday, he was back to being almost un-contactable, and when she saw him she was worried by how tired and drawn he looked. She wasn't sure any plans for her would be worth seeing him like that.

The biggest disappointment was that two days before the wedding he couldn't come and view the hall with her. The hotel had finished putting the decorations up according to her design, and it was necessary to go and see how they suited. She waited until dark, just at the time the wedding would be, and then went along. She crossed her fingers that it would look like she wanted, then, as soon as she opened the door, she gasped.

She had never thought that her dream venue could really exist, but here it was, right in front of her. Maman and Dad, who had been in charge of making sure everything went her way, had not cut any corners. The aisle she would be walking down had a long red carpet, the colour of which, like the cloak she had to go with her wedding dress, was neither too dark nor too bright. There were rows and rows of gold-coloured chairs with white cushions, and a large Christmas tree in the far corner with red, white and gold decorations in the corner of the room at the foot of which their wedding presents would be laid. She could see in the as she looked ahead of her she saw sparkling sheer curtains which twinkled in the light of the candles around the room. On the day, however, they would be lit by fairies flying around in the space of the rounded ceiling, who would, when the ceremony started, settle into an arc behind the altar. It would be magnificent. She had been waiting three years to get married, and finally she could see it all coming together.

Maman came over to stand beside her. "Do you like it?"

"I feel like asking Ted to come and marry me now," she said.

Maman laughed. "Two more days. And they will fly by, I promise."

Many miles away, in the staff room at Hogwarts, Rupert was about to retire to his bedroom when Professor Vector strode in, holding a familiar book in her hands.

"Have you seen this, Fanshaw?" she said, slamming the book down on the table.

"_A Medical History of Dark Creatures_? Yes, I-I borrowed it a while ago..."

"It has a _hole _in it," Vector said, flipping over the front cover, to reveal the empty hollow that Ted's grandfather's notebook had once been in. "What a needless desecration of school property!"

Professor Flitwick gestured to it from the other side of the table, and Vector pushed it towards him in a huff.

Flitwick looked closely at the table on the inside front cover. "Very interesting. Septima, you and Rupert are the only people to have borrowed this book in fifty years. I'm starting to wonder if it was ever meant to be available for borrowing at all. Back when Madam Pince was the librarian, she kept a few books locked away, mostly on the orders of the headmaster. It's practically a sin to destroy information, but there are some things our students are better off not knowing. The one on Horcruxes, for example, will probably never see the light of day again. But the new librarian must have redistributed them. Though I can't think why this one would have been put away in the first place, unless there used to be something in the hollow..." He chuckled. "A bottle of Firewhiskey, perhaps!"

Rupert was painfully reminded of Ted's project, which he would have liked to keep an eye on if he hadn't been so busy. And two days before the wedding as well...

"I'll take it back," Vector said. "I'll see if Clearwater knows anything about it."

"Er...it's more my domain, I-I'll take it to her." Rupert said, nervously.

Vector shrugged, and passed him the book. "Very well, Fanshaw, be my guest."

Rupert had taken the book to his private room, to get another look at it, when he noticed a letter waiting by his owl's cage. Hoping it was from a certain musician, he decided he had time to take a look at it.

_Rupert,_

_Emergency stag party for Ted. Daft son of a Bludger forgot to organise something, so Al and I are dragging him to the Three Broomsticks tonight. Want to join? _

_James _

How a former Head Boy like Ted had got to be so disorganised as to forget his own stag party, he didn't know. He shortly left the grounds for Hogsmeade.

Their party wasn't too hard to spot; even though it was just Al, James, Ted and a few people from Ted's work, they made enough noise to make up for it. Ted was slumped in his chair, looking a bit pale with only a slight smile on his face. Rupert felt another twinge of guilt. A best man ought to be better at looking after the groom.

"Are you alright?" he asked his friend quietly.

"'M fine," Ted said, grinning. "I've just discovered my drink downing skills ain't what they used to be..." There was a large wet patch on his shirt. Before Rupert could tell him that was soon remedied, Ted picked up his drink and stood up.

"This, gentlemen," he said, "is a toast. To my future wife; the lovely, kind, generous...and _smokin' hot_...Victoire Weasley!"

Rupert couldn't help concluding there was nothing wrong here. "To Victoire!"

The night before the wedding, Ted was alone in his flat. Victoire's parents wanted her with them for one last night together, and while he'd been to Gran's for dinner, she had wanted to go to bed as soon as her favourite soap on the wireless was over. He needed to be alone to get ready for the next day, and whatever it brought, but once he'd showered, shaved (which, he wondered, might be slightly pointless) and laid out some old clothes for the following night, he desperately wished he had some company. He looked at his owl and wondered if it would be so bad to owl Harry and tell him...

Then of course he thought of where Harry would be at this time of night. Probably in front of the fire with Ginny, thinking about how proud he would be to see Ted, the boy he loved like his own son, join the family that had also adopted him. He'd be ready for the 'father of the groom' role, making lots of jokes and touching comments.

No, no, it was no good. He had gotten himself into this alone, and he would get out of it alone. Simple as that.

He got into bed, knowing he wouldn't sleep that night, especially when the nearly-full moon was so clearly outside the window as if it was deliberately trying to oppress him. In the darkness he could see the picture of Victoire he kept beside his bed. It was one he'd taken the day before he asked her out for the first time eleven years before, as a momento in case she said no. Her smile hadn't changed a bit.

"I love you," he told her. "I'm so sorry..."

He felt tears sting his eyes, and turned away to face the window.

The next morning he woke up to sunshine, and immediately knew the plan had gone wrong. He turned to look at the clock and noticed that Rupert would be round for him in ten minutes. There wasn't a second to lose; he threw on his clothes, and bolted to the dining room to compose a note for Victoire.

_Victoire, _

_If you read this, I'm so, so sorry. I will explain everything when I see you but for now this is the only option I have. I know I've let you, and a lot of other people down, and I expect you will not want to forgive me. I don't think I'd deserve it if you did. But I love you, passionately, and I always, always will._

_All my love, your Ted_

He blinked to stop himself from crying, and for a moment he was sat there in suspense, trying not to break down but unable to tear himself away.

Then, he heard Rupert knocking at the door, and, wiping his face with his eyes, Apparated to somewhere no one would find him.

Half an hour later, Rupert Apparated in. He searched all the rooms in the flat for his friend but didn't think to look at the note, because it was written on the back of a letter from the Uxbridge Library.

Ted spent the rest of the day Apparating from place to place. He knew what he must have looked like to the Muggles he passed; dishevelled, extremely tired (it had been about three days since he last slept), and with a look of unholy despair. His own mind drifted between thinking of what Rupert was doing without him, how excited Victoire was getting, and how much the transformation was going to hurt. His father, Remus Lupin, had transformed for the first time at the age of six, and though he might have been a bit braver with twenty-two more years on him, Ted was petrified to the point of feeling nauseous if he thought about it too much.

After many hours of wandering the streets of towns all over the UK, he finally saw the sun setting. He removed his flask of Wolfsbane Potion from his bag and downed it (it was easier than dealing with the taste slowly) and, with a heavy sigh, went into an alley way and Apparated to the Shrieking Shack.

He hadn't been to the Shack since he was eleven, but even now he was overwhelmed by how isolated he felt in there. He settled down on the hard floor and the draughts in all directions, together with the groaning old wood which stank of rot, kept him alert. He put his wand in the piano rather early rather than put any light on; he felt it would be better if he could not see himself. As it grew darker and darker until all he could see were the outlines of the furniture, and when he moved his arms and legs he could not see them.

He had, a few days before, looked up the exact time the moon would become full, and there was still a lot of time to go, but there was no way he could leave now. He imagined Rupert would be extremely worried by now; perhaps he, Harry and Gran would be searching together. And soon Victoire would know...

What would happen after tonight? He hadn't given it much thought. The people of Hogsmeade would no doubt notice that their old Shack was shrieking again, and since the truth about Remus Lupin was now well-known, the Department of Magical Creatures would called be in with their tranquilisers. He'd probably end up in hospital, and have to explain to the Healers where there was no bite scar. He'd join the Werewolf Registry. Try and get a new job, find something to make ends meet so he could stay in the flat. Hope Gran would forgive him, and Victoire would like him. Hope he hadn't disappointed his parents, wherever they were...

Another gust of wind, and Ted shivered and gritted his teeth. He was impatient now, almost angry. If it was going to happen, let it. He couldn't stand waiting any longer.

Something changed then. He felt a sharp pain at the back of his head, and he realised he was incredibly hungry and thirsty. He hoped it wouldn't make the wolf any more violent...

As the last few minutes closed in, he wondered what his own father had thought before transformation, especially when he was married with a family. Did the pain of transformation hurt more than thinking what a dangerous burden he was to them?

One minute. Ted closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Victoire," he said.

He waited, muscles tensed, for the pain to hit. He didn't dare relax or let go for fear it, whatever it was, would catch him off guard. His sense of time was distorted, he knew, but after a while he sensed that a lot of time had gone by.

Perhaps he hadn't felt it? No, impossible. Even if he had taken Wolfsbane, there was no way he could not notice a shift in his own body. He was a Metamorphmagus, his body was used to changing back and forth.

That was when he realised that for all his worrying about being half-werewolf, he'd forgotten that his other 'half' had made an important contribution to his genetics as well. Metamorphmagi were extremely resilient to external changes. His old body had saved his life. Unless, of course, he had never changed himself into a werewolf in the first place, because the truth was, he was not going to transform at all.

He felt a slight wave of relief, but then an almost a literal crash of guilt as he realised what he had done. By this time the wedding would have already started. He had wasted what would have been the most perfect night of his life. He had abandoned the family that had loved him and taken him in, and the love of his life, for nothing at all. He had thought, two weeks ago, that it could not get any worse, but it had. He was a failure and a disgrace. He hardly deserved to even share a surname with John, Remus and Nymphadora Lupin...

With this thought, he did what he had felt like doing for a long time and burst into agonising, wretched sobs. He clenched every muscle in his body and curled up, screaming silently into the darkness. He cursed himself and every hour he'd wasted on this pointless, pointless experiment, and the utterly ruined life that would greet him when the sun rose again.

His mind was anguished, but his body was tired, and without quite knowing it, he slipped into a deep sleep.


	10. Flesh and Blood

**A/N:** Thanks to my lovely reviewers, **Kerichi, ladyofthelight101 **and **Astrum Ululatum, **and everyone who reads. Thanks also to my lovely betareader, **rayslady**. Hope you enjoy!

**Chapter Ten - Flesh and Blood**

_It is not flesh and blood, but heart which makes us fathers and sons._  
Friedrich von Schiller

While his body took a long overdue rest, the combined power of sleep and a bright full moon gently carried Ted to somewhere that was safe and warm. It was a large living room, with light flowered wallpaper and a beige coloured carpet. It seemed old somehow. He felt unsure of the place, and yet didn't know why he felt that way.

His eye, or his mind, in the dream, picked up on a few more details. There was an unlit fireplace in white stone to his left and sunlight as bright as midday was coming into the room from behind him. He noticed an antique grandfather clock to his right. Even in the dream he knew every contour It was very familiar to him, because it had been in Gran's living room for nearly thirty years...

...Gran's living room, or as he'd always known it before, the living room. That's where he was. But it was different to the one he knew. None of the various items of furniture were in their usual places, a lot of things he remembered were not there at all, and the colour of the place and the atmosphere was different, it was brighter. This was what the home had been like when he had been born, nearly three decades earlier, he thought. Gran, trying as best she could to move on, had changed the entire house after Mum, Dad and Granddad died, and of course he had never remembered the difference.

So how had he come to this old room, or how had this old room come to him?

A voice suddenly said, "Teddy."

He turned round. A man was on the cream-coloured sofa in front of him. He was about as tall and thin as Ted was, and as pale, yet he didn't look tired or at all unhealthy. If he was who Ted thought he was, perhaps he should have done.

Words couldn't come to him, even in this dream. He'd dreamt of this person many times before, but the image had never been quite like this. He had always appeared as he did in Ted's photographs of him; almost permanently tired, hair thinning with stress, yet, especially in the earliest and latest photos, he had a certain bright and energetic look in his eyes. That look was there now, highlighted by the bright sun. In the usual dreams, he very rarely spoke, and if he did it was never to him. He was also usually against the background of flowery wallpaper on a cream-coloured sofa, too...

"You can't be..."

"Don't panic, Teddy. I'm here for nothing but good."

It was him. Dad. His face was different, but his voice was the same. Ted had known what his voice sounded like from the Potterwatch recordings he'd listened to from his earliest childhood; words like 'Tell him we are all with him in spirit' were ingrained in his memory as closely as nursery rhymes or the days of the week - he had once pretended the 'him' in the sentence was himself. It usually took quite an effort of imagination to picture him saying anything else.

Ted was slightly unnerved by how real this was, and it made him suspicious.

"Why are you calling me Teddy? It's Ted now."

"Sorry Teddy...Ted, force of habit. It was what we called you when you were born."

"I don't know where you've come from, er..." He couldn't bring himself to address him by name. "My brain is not in a good place at the moment, in fact, neither is any part of me, and-and the only reason you're here is because I thought of you when I was falling asleep."

He didn't understand why he was so hesitant in his dream. Usually the emotions came thick and fast, like a short story.

"Ted." He was looking at him with the kindest and most natural sympathy. Gran had always said they had the same eyes, and suddenly Ted felt an unwanted . "You can say what you like about where I've come from, but I'm here for a much more important reason than that."

Ted suddenly felt like he ought to be a child again. He'd spent an inordinate amount of time in childhood wishing for an encounter just like this, to the point where, early in the morning when Gran didn't know he was awake he would talk to his dad as if he were on the end of the bed. Pure craziness. He was too old for that nonsense now. His dad was dead and was never going to help him however much he needed him.

Harry had always told him that the spirits of the dead were out there somewhere. He'd seen them; he said they looked healthier and younger than they did in life, the way they were in their souls. For this reason Harry had always told him that his parents were definitely there somewhere, keeping an eye on him and loving him until the day he saw them again. Right now he really needed them - not just anyone, but them, Remus and Nymphadora Lupin - and maybe, just maybe, the barrier had been broken. But Ted couldn't have felt more pessimistic if he'd tried, and miracles seemed more impossible than they ever had before.

"If you're who I think you are," Ted said slowly, "and I'm not making you up, tell me something I don't know. Tell me...how my grandfather died. Your...father."

A sad look came into his eyes; he looked more like he did in some of his photos. "He died of a sudden and vicious heart attack. Not something wizards fall victim to often, but he had been alone in the house, so by the time my mother got home to him it was too late. I was seventeen."

"Did...you discover what he was doing?" Ted asked. He was surprised at how taken in he was all of a sudden. He had wondered what the experiments had meant to his father, especially since they were his experiments now too.

"No, I assumed he had given it all up once I started school. But I discovered why he was doing it. Teddy, you know that your grandfather was passionate about curing me and giving me my health back. But there was a side to it that you don't know, and that I didn't find out for a long time. It was his fault I was a werewolf. Indirectly, of course, but nonetheless, it was his actions that brought it about. He fooled Fenrir Greyback by offering to cure his lycanthropy for free, when really he was being paid to experiment on him to support the Ministry's anti-werewolf policy. Once he found out, Greyback decided he ought to have a taste of what lycanthropy really was, and he knew, to the great suffering of many families, how much more parents suffer their child's pain than their own. I was bitten not long after my sixth birthday, and my father lived in unending guilt. When I first found out, though, I didn't think about all that; all I felt was an overwhelming hurt that he had done this to me. I felt like our relationship could never be the same again, and I went back to school feeling like my nice little family was broken when nothing had really changed. Then, as I was about to leave school, I found out I probably wouldn't get a job even if I did pass my exams. I knew then that my father hadn't been trying to save me from the beast - the beast was what I was - but to save me from the fate that other people would give me. I wrote to him, but he died before I had a chance to see him. I spent the rest of my life wishing I could have a chance to apologise to him in person."

He looked down then, as if, even though it was all a very long time ago, that regret carried on.

Ted sighed. His poor grandfather had probably halted his experiments not because he'd discovered lycanthropy but because he'd realised he was ruining people's lives, not helping them, and his ideas were better off being enacted by someone else. But now history had repeated itself. The Lupin family had been let down again.

"...I take it you believe me now?" He said, hesitantly.

"Yeah," Ted said, and if he hadn't felt so terrible he probably would have smiled. He knew this was just his subconscious playing tricks; he'd gone down thinking of Dad and here he was. The story about Granddad had probably come up sometime when he was little and been buried in his memory for all these years. Still...

"I don't know where you've come from, and I'm still not sure if I've made you up, but...alright, I'll listen to you, Dad."

"Thank you, Teddy," Dad said. "It makes my job so much easier."

Ted wondered what this 'job' was. Maybe it was about closure. He'd let his dad down and now his subconscious wanted him to apologise for his ignorance and foolhardiness, and as soon as he did this painful dream would end.

"I'm sorry," he blurted. (if it wasn't real, why were the words so hard?) "I shouldn't have continued his experiments. It was...beyond stupid, it was...idiotic! I acted like a stupid kid who wants to impress other kids by jumping off a tree. I really thought I could do something. I thought I was someone special, someone who could change the world and make it into the place you and Mum wanted it to be, and turned out to be the biggest failure imaginable."

"You are not a failure!" Dad said, emotionally (how did his subconscious produce this?) "Yes, if you hadn't tried the experiment, you'd be happily married by now. You'd also be a lot healthier. But there's nothing wrong with wanting to help others. Especially when those others are people you love, and loved. You weren't just doing this for the world, or even for you and your Mum. You were doing it for Victoire. And for yourself."

"Selfish," Ted muttered.

"Not really," Dad said. "People take risks for themselves every day. At least you weren't only thinking of yourself. And whatever you say...you weren't doomed for the start."

Ted frowned, and noticed the shadows were over himself, too. "Well, whatever you say, I'm doomed for the end. It's easy for you to forgive me, you're dead. You can see the past and the present and the future and nothing needs to scare you or hurt you anymore. But someone like Victoire...she's supposed to have been my wife by now, and she'll probably never want to see me again."

"Teddy," Dad said. "Victoire will want to see you again, at least once more. Even if you think she won't understand, you have to at least give yourself, and her, a chance. You know why? Because this far, you haven't done that badly. You're telling yourself that this is the end and you've let everyone down but really, Teddy, all you've done is make a mistake. You genuinely believed you were going to turn into a werewolf - not irrationally, either, because for a moment even I thought you might..."

"Would you have been disappointed if I had?" Ted interrupted.

"I...I'd have hated to see you in that pain, Ted. The suffering never quite ends, even without the politics, and you know that so well I could see you were ready to resign yourself to it before it even began to happen. So yes, I was worried for you. But fortunately, your mother and I have worked to give you another chance."

"Genetically, yeah."

"I'm also here, aren't I?"

Not really, Ted thought. I'm making you up. I _am_ making you up.

"Why are you here? How did you get here, if you're not a dream?"

"I can't tell you. These things are kept secret from the living, for a good reason."

Hmm, my imagination has its limits, Ted thought.

"It involved a lot of hard work, but I had to do it. I made mistakes in my life, Teddy. So did your grandfather. Huge, terrible mistakes. Some of them were our own fault, and some of it was the fault of the curse. But you still have a chance, and I'm here to make sure you save yourself from a terrible fate."

"I can't see what's more terrible than losing Victoire," Ted said, averting his eyes. It was the truth; he really could not imagine life without her. "Am I...am I going to die? Is that it?"

"No, you're not going to die! You're not going to lose Victoire either. Unless, of course, you don't go back."

Ted noticed an echo in the room then. The words 'go back' rang in his ears. It was almost ethereal; certainly nothing like an ordinary living room. The sun was setting behind him and it cast a beautiful golden glow in the room. For a second he thought that even though his father looked so much younger, he could recognise the spaces where the lines, the dark circles and all the other marks of stress and strain had been.

"I've told you once, and I will tell you again. You have made a mistake, Teddy. Quite a fault of judgement, but so far done purely out of love. The people who love you know you, they know you've got a lot of big dreams. Remember when you petitioned to save the Shack?"

Ted smiled. "Yeah. I thought that was pretty heroic of me at the time. But the older I get, the more I realise I ran a _campaign_ to save a bloody shed. Although in retrospect, it's probably just as well I did."

"Much as I might loathe its memory, it is more than just a shed. I've been trying to tell Sirius that for a long time. It's a piece of history."

_Sirius? My subconscious is not half clever_, Ted thought.

"But, as I was saying...the people who truly love you will understand you make mistakes. They will be patient with you and they will forgive you. But they are human beings, not angels. Their capacity for forgiveness can only go so far. Ted, if you walk away from Victoire now, without even telling her why you left her wedding, you *will* lose her, because if you hurt her just that bit more she'll start to question why she loves you. You can have a great future with her, Ted, and don't tell me you don't deserve that future. I...I once almost walked out on you and your mother..."

Ted had known about this from Harry, but he hadn't quite believed it was true and buried the idea away in his mind. But he was all the more eager to listen for it.

"...because I thought I was too much of a failure and I'd never be able to give you what you deserved. She didn't care about what she deserved, she wanted me. But if I hadn't gone back to her when I did, she probably would have, justifiably, given up."

"Victoire's not Mum. She's probably already given up."

"You don't know that. And you won't know that unless you wake up and go back."

Ted wasn't used to references to waking up in dreams. If literature was to be believed, talking about waking up was a sign you weren't dreaming at all. Maybe his dad really had come down to talk to him.

"You really think I should do that? Don't you think I've done enough stupid things already?"

"Yes, you have made mistakes, but they're less stupid than you know. You'll get back on your feet, Ted."

Ted was overwhelmed all of a sudden. All his scepticism flew away and at that moment he really believed that his dad was in front of him. It was something he'd wanted for so long that he felt like, if he were really alive, he would have begun to cry.

"Alright, I'll do this. But I really don't know if she'll forgive me. I've let her down so badly."

"Not yet. She'll listen, if nothing else. If you love her, trust her. Trust yourself! I've got faith in you, Teddy, because despite my lamentable absence I do know you, and I love you. You've got a certain kind of heart in you. Your mother has it too."

Ted felt moisture on his cheeks. He was crying. He'd been told all his life that his mother and father were watching him and loving him, but he'd never had any real proof. Now, he believed it.

He noticed then that the room was much darker. The sun behind him had fully set and there were long shadows on the carpet. Dad's image was becoming a little less clear.

"Time's running out," he said. "Here, and there. You'd better wake up."

Ted knew that he had to, and now that he knew he had to see Victoire he wanted to, but this was his dad in front of him. There might be another sixty years before they saw each other again.

"So...you love me?"

"Yes, of course I love youy," Dad said, and Ted saw his genuine smile, but around the edges his image was fading. "We both do."

He didn't know quite what came over him, but he rushed towards his dad then. Dad knew exactly what he wanted, and stood up, and they embraced. For all this thoughts about how real or not real it was, this hug felt more real than any he had dreamt before. He believed...he _knew_, he was really with his dad.

"Can I ask one thing?" Ted said, without relinquishing the hug.  
"Anything?"  
"Wherever you are...are you still with Mum? I guess you're not allowed to tell me, but you know, I've always wondered, what with 'til death do us part' and all that."

There was that, and then there was the fact that he wanted to believe Dad had really loved Mum, that Gran would see Granddad again, and that love could survive all accidents.

"She is my soulmate," Dad said. "And our souls will never die. She is indeed still with me now, and I hope she always will be."

Ted felt his heart lift. Wherever his parents were, they had each other. He dared to hope that he and Victoire's souls would be the same...though hopefully a long way away from now.

"Will I ever see her?"

"Yes. When the time is right..." Dad said. He let go of Ted and took a step back. Suddenly the clock struck. It was unnaturally loud, especially with the echo, and its noise seemed to be causing Dad's image to fade. The whole room was fading away...

"Thank you, Dad," Ted cried, though he was afraid it was already too late. "Thank you! Thank you for..."

His head hit the floor, and he was awake. He opened his eyes and breathed out. It was dark and cold and he was still in the Shack, spread-eagled on the dusty floor. There was another loud bang, like that in the dream, and he turned his head. Someone was struggling with the door, and from the look for it they'd soon have it open. As he came to his senses a bit more, he heard voices.

"Are you sure he's here? It's not at all safe." Gran.  
"Mrs Tonks, I'm as certain as I can be." Rupert. He was the one at the door.  
"Wands, everyone." Harry.  
"TED? Ted? Can you hear me?" Victoire...


	11. One Woman

**A/N:** Thank you to my reviewers, Kerichi, Adventure-Seeking-Juliet and saskiawrites, and to my betareader, ladyofthelight101, and to everyone still reading! I really hope you enjoy this chapter!

**Chapter Eleven: One Woman  
**

_"To all the world he was the man of violence, half animal and half demon; but to her he always remained the little wilful boy of her own girlhood, the child who had clung to her hand. Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him."__  
_~ The Hound of the Baskervilles

The door burst open, and Rupert tripped into the room, followed by Gran, Harry and Victoire. They looked around in trepidation for a second, expecting a werewolf to leap at them from the darkness, but then reacted with relief and surprise to see Ted, all too human, lying helplessly on the floor. Ted latched his eyes onto Victoire and watched her cast the light of her wand, along with those of the others, over him. When she saw his face – he imagined he probably did not look his best, to say the least – she took a step forward as if it was her instinct to care for him, but then remembered everything half a second later, and stood stock still at his feet.

Gran, despite her age, had knelt down by Ted's head, and cupped his face in her hands. She looked closely at him. Though the slight flush in her cheeks suggested she was happy to see he was still human, she was frowning a little with worry.

"Oh, my poor Teddy," she said, softly, and kissed him on the forehead. "Rupert gave us the impression something terrible had happened to you."

"I think he probably thought it would happen himself," Harry said, sympathetically. He had crouched at Ted's side, and was holding his wrist. Ted loved him for speaking to him so kindly, and Gran for not blaming him for anything that had happened. He also knew now that it must have been Rupert, who was kneeling by his feet, who figured out where he was and decided to find him despite the potential danger. Perhaps this meant they were not disappointed and he was forgiven, and that was not so much a relief to him as a blessing. However, this feeling was only momentary for him while Victoire was still standing. His thoughts, though they were confused, focused entirely on Victoire. All he saw was her.

He feared her resentment, but her face showed no expression at all. It was as if her features were hanging in wait for her opinion. He noticed that though she had changed her clothes, she had not removed her make-up, and so if it were not for that look on her face he would be seeing the face of his bride.

"Victoire," he said, and he could hear and feel that his voice was as weak as the rest of him. "Victoire, I'm so sorry..."

He tried to raise himself so he could speak to her properly, but his limbs were heavy and disobedient. Gran immediately noticed him struggling and gently wrapped her arms around him.

"Shh..." she said, as if comforting a child, "Don't fret about anything. We're all just glad you're safe."

Ted hardly heard her. Part of his mind was still in the dream - he could hear Dad's words in his head, as clearly as if he had really been there. All other impressions were lost to him. Rupert was apologising to him about not putting the pieces together in time, even affectionately adding that he was not so astute at mysteries as his friend was. Harry had placed his jacket over his godson's shoulders, as it was the middle of an extremely cold December night, and Ted was shivering, though he had gone past the point of noticing this as well. As if Victoire was what was left after all everything had faded. He strained himself against Gran's hold to sit up, and looked at her lovingly and desperately;

"Victoire, I'm sorry I abandoned you. As you can see, even though I might have thought I did, I had no real reason to do it. And even though I am sorry, I won't demand your forgiveness. I just want you to know that one of the reasons why I did what I did was because of you, and us...because of the future we wanted."

She drew her hands to her mouth. He could see her beautiful eyes in the dark. He felt out of breath, and registered that Gran and Harry were poised behind him.

"And," he said, swallowing. "I know that maybe I've destroyed that future."  
The clear image of Dad came back into his mind. So strongly did he now believe that the dream had been Dad that he now felt like he was recalling a real memory.

"The only thing I need you to do for me, Victoire, is to know that I love you. If I know what love is at all, I love you. You're everything I'm worth. There's no me without you. I'm -"A dizzy feeling swept over him, and he lost focus for a moment. "I'm losing control a bit! But this, I know. I'm sorry, sorrier than I have ever been in my life, and if I could change it all then I would. But I can't, so all I have to say for myself is that...I'm yours."

There was a moment's pause. Everyone in the room was looking at Victoire. For a second Ted was worried she wouldn't react - he honestly didn't know what he would have done without her. Then he saw her face crumple, and tears flowed from her eyes.

"Oh, Teddy," she said, thickly. She walked up to him, and crouched by his side. He felt her hand on his, and smiled at her, but then the dizziness came over him again, and he fell back into Gran's arms.

When he came round it was still dark, and the only source of light was not from the moon above him but some street lamps shining through a window to his left. He felt a soft mattress beneath him instead of a hard floor, and he was completely confused. For a second he thought he'd been taken to hospital, and then left there. He sat up in a panic and called out "Hello? Where am I?" loudly, only to feel two gloved hands on his shoulders, guiding him back down. He looked and saw Victoire, slumped in a chair by his bed and looking at him with a smile that was a little forced.

"Don't panic. You're at your Gran's house," she whispered. He felt soothed by the sound of her voice. "You fainted, and we brought you back here on a stretcher Harry conjured. He's gone home now, but he'll be back first thing in the morning to check on you. Your gran's asleep in her room, Rupert's downstairs on the sofa, and I'm here."

"What time is it?" he asked, weakly.

"I don't know," she said. She was so tired her eyelids were drooping. "I've been here for a while. About two, I think."

A thought occurred to him, and he reached for her arm. "We're supposed to be at the hotel!" he exclaimed, frantically. "And, and we've got to go on our honeymoon! The ship's leaving at six! I haven't packed, I've got to pack, there's no time!"

He sat up to start packing, but she pressed his shoulders again, more firmly.

"Don't think about that. I'll sort it all out tomorrow. Or later _today,_rather."

"We'll have to pay a cancellation fee!"

"Ted," she laughed, wearily. "I'm a travel agent. I'm damned if I pay _myself_ a cancellation fee!"  
He sighed deeply, and let himself relax. His body felt just as heavy as it had in the Shack; in fact, it felt even worse. His skin was sticky with sweat. He squirmed under the quilt.

"It's really hot in here," he said. "Can you open the window?"

"Ted, it's freezing in here. I've got two blankets on and I'm still cold. Oh, Merlin..."

She removed one of her gloves and pressed her hand to his forehead. "You're not well, my love. You've got a temperature."

She removed the duvet and placed it by his side, so it would be within his reach if he got cold again. She also conjured him a drink of water, and held it for him until he could get a firm grip of it. All he really registered was a sweet reassurance at her calling him 'my love', and smiled at her when she undid the first few buttons of his pyjamas (he did not know who had changed his clothes, but he suspected it was her).

"I'm going to try and sleep now," she said emotionlessly, as if she did not want to encourage his joy yet. "I think you should too. I'm just here if you need me in the night."

"I love you," he told her, but she had already turned away to curl up in the chair. He watched her for a moment, then put his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes.

Ted would barely remember the two days that followed that. As anyone but himself might have predicted, he became quite ill. He was not awake much, and when he was, all he had to say was that his head or stomach hurt, that he was thirsty, that it was too hot or too cold in the room, or that he wanted another dose of potion. As per usual when he was ill, his hair, nails, hands and feet morphed beyond his control, which did not help anything. Sometimes when he woke up he would be strangely argumentative or demanding with whoever was in the room:  
"The spoon, the spoon! Where is the spoon?"

"What spoon?"

"The _spoon_! You know!"

"I'm sorry, but I don't know. Has your Gran given you your potions with a spoon, is that it?"

"The spoon! You aren't _listening_, Victoire!"

"And you aren't looking, Ted. I'm Harry."

"…eh? What?...oh, hello, Harry… what's going on?"

"You were just asking me for a spoon."

"What do I want with a spoon?"

He had a loyal little team of helpers though, who worked around the clock to help him recover, and to make a start on repairing some of the damage done over the past six months.

Ted did not really return to lucidity until three days after the full moon, when he woke up and turned his head to see Victoire smiling beside him once again, genuinely this time.

"Good morning," she said brightly, and kissed him on the cheek.

"Good morning," he replied. His voice, though still weak, sounded more normal than it had for a while. "I feel like I've had a very very long sleep…what day is it?"

"Friday."

"…Nah, it can't be!"

"Oh, it is," she said, raising her eyebrows in amusement. "You've been very ill, Ted. Your gran said you put your poor body through so much with all your mad experiments that now it's fighting back, and taking _you_ back again. But we've all been taking care of you, and, looking at your hair, I think we are starting to get the Ted Lupin we love back, at last." When she saw he couldn't tell what colour his hair was, she added, "It's turquoise," and kissed him again, on the head. "And just in time for Christmas, too."

"What…oh my God, it's Christmas!"

"Yes, Ted!" she said, laughing. "I don't think it'll be one of our best, to say the least, but we've pulled a few things together. Your Gran's made you some soup and some jelly if you feel up to eating, and Harry will be round later with all the family, and you've got _a lot_ of cards to open."

With a flourish, she reached under her chair and put a small pile of cards in his lap. Noticing that he did not seem to have the energy to sit up, she picked up the first of the cards and showed it to him.

_To Teddy, Merry Christmas! We hope you have a lovely day. We were all very upset to hear about the brain fever, and we hope you get well in time to have a very happy New Year. Lots of love, Percy, Audrey, Molly and Lucy_

"What's brain fever? Have I got it?"

Victoire smirked. "That was Dominique's idea, to tide over the family's worries. It's not a complete lie, really! She said to tell you she got it from _The Copper Beeches_, if that means anything to you."

Ted nodded contentedly. "Tell her I said thanks."

The next card was from Rupert, who was also wishing him a Merry Christmas _and hoping that he manages a bit of his gran's trifle, because he knows himself how fine it is._

"Where is he?" Ted asked. He vaguely remembered seeing his friend around his sick bed over the past couple of days.

"He said he's having lunch at Hogwarts, as he gets _paid _to do," (Ted interrupted this with "Jammy git"), "and then he'll be with his sister and her family all afternoon and evening if you want to contact him."

"I should thank him," Ted said. He realised that, if Rupert had not figured out where he was that night, he might not have been able to get to Victoire.

"He and Harry have also been and sorted out your flat, so you can go home when you feel better. They said it was in a terrible state. Though your Gran and I just said, "What's the difference?""

She laughed to herself, and her cheerfulness made him want to ask her a very important question, but that was when she remembered Gran would probably like to know he was awake and levelheaded again, and got up and dashed downstairs.

Ted, to his gran's pride and joy, finished his bowl of soup and most of the jelly, and loved the present she gave him; a big book of Italian recipes.

"I thought you'd be there by now," she said, humbly, "but even though you're not, I think you need to find a new outlet for your wonderful Potions skills. Especially now, when there's hardly anything to you!" she chastised him, holding up one of his very skinny wrists. Ted had been disgusted for the past two days by the very thought of food, but the picture of Linguine al Granchio made his mouth water, and he decided that the days of his and Victoire's nights in with 'Big Al's Great Value Pizza' were over. Harry visited as promised, though not for very long, as they had to host the Weasley-Potter family Christmas party. He was very happy to see Ted was a bit better, and hugged him.

"You had us all worried," he said. "I'm so glad you're alright."

"I'm glad you're all alright," Ted said. "I've barely thought about me.

He persuaded Gran to write a letter to Rupert on his behalf, asking him to come over just for half an hour or so. He obliged, and came into Ted's room that afternoon looking bright and cheerful, with a paper hat on his head.

"It's nice to have some peace and quiet for a moment," he said, so casually it was as if nothing at all had changed. "Chloe and Isaac have some wonderful noisy toys, and I'd have to be a cruel uncle to put a Quietus Charm on them. I'm sorry I haven't been around, but Martha was…"

"Don't worry about that!" Ted interrupted. "I just want to say thank you for… finding me the other night. How did you know where I was?"

Rupert looked rather ashamed for a moment. "I suspected you were developing symptoms of lycanthropy as soon as I saw the shadow of the wolf on your face, and I was worried for you. I wanted to keep an eye on you, but Hogwarts and other things distracted me. When I noticed you were missing, I immediately thought it had something to do with the potion, but it was only when Victoire's mother pointed out the full moon that I realised you had gone to the Shack to...potentially...transform."

"You remembered the Shack?" Ted said.

"Of course I did! Not only do I spend most of my life on those grounds, I campaigned with you to save it from being demolished. The way we went on about it, you'd think it was our British national heritage."

Ted laughed. "I feel lucky to have you."

"Ted, you're my oldest friend," Rupert said warmly. "Saving your relationship with _your_ oldest friend was the least I could do for you."

He was not entirely sure if his relationship with Victoire was saved yet, but Ted felt a lot better about it than he had.

"Will you be seeing your _friend_ tonight?"

"No, but she's coming to Hogsmeade tomorrow," Rupert said, and there was the slightest flush in his cheeks.

Ted's last visitors for the day were Bill and Fleur. The brain fever excuse had been enough for the more distant members of the family, but Victoire could not tell an outright lie to her own family, and so the meeting was somewhat nerve-wracking for someone in an already fragile condition.

"Vicky's told us everything," Bill said, once Victoire and Fleur had gone out with the excuse of getting 'mulled wine'. "And we've had a few days to think about it. I can never approve of you abandoning my daughter."

"No, sir."

"I also think you could have acted better in general."

"…Yes, sir."

"However…I'm a Gryffindor, a man who loves his family, and, unfortunately, something close to a werewolf," Bill said. "Fleur and I were devastated when Victoire told us what the Healers had told you. The last thing we'd ever want is to be responsible for our grandkid's suffering. So, we want you to know that understand your motives, and those we can't oppose."

His stern, scarred face softened a little. "We've also known you since the day you were born. You're a part of our family, and we forgive each other."

Ted loved Bill and Fleur too; they were very different from Gran, and his own parents, but he was proud to have their respect and affection, and it touched him to think he had kept it even after all this trouble.

"Thank you," he said, sincerely.

"But," Bill continued. "You should know that if Victoire doesn't want to forgive you, we're not going to make her."

Ted bowed his head. Yes, there was still that, and they were right, of course, painful as it may have been to think about

"I understand, Sir."

When they left, Fleur hugged him, Bill clapped him on the shoulder, and they wished him the best of luck recovering from the "brain fever". They also said they would have a bottle of wine ready for him when he was better.

With that, Ted was left alone with Victoire. The night was drawing in quickly.

"Those new dress robes are very pretty," he said. He reached out and stroked her hair, and she smiled at this and leant forward to allow him to reach it, just as she always had before.

"Merry Christmas, Ted," she said.

"Merry Christmas, Victoire." He wanted to kiss her, but decided, having made so many decisions without her recently, that he'd ask before assuming.

"Victoire…do you forgive me?"

She leaned back, and straightened up.

"I've had a lot of time to think," she said. "And I needed it. I've been talking to everyone, particularly Rupert and your Gran, and they've made me feel a lot better. But I must admit, if you hadn't been so ill I might not have been prevented from shouting and screaming at you a few times. Of course I know that, expensive as it was, the wedding wasn't everything, but you know how much it meant to me. I've been waiting for it for three years, and so for a little while I just had to mourn the day I didn't get to have. But…Ted, you are the love of my life, and what you've been trying to do proves that more than the wedding could have, even if it did go wrong. I will forgive you, because you're my Ted and I adore you, but only if you promise me not to do such drastic things without me again. You'll have your own projects, and I'll have mine, but we can't…hide things. If you want to keep curing lycanthropy, let me help you."

He took in all she said, and pressed her hand with his. "I don't know if I could take it any more, but you are right. We don't just love, we trust each other, and I'm going to show it, in the future. Victoire…will you still be my wife?"

She smiled. "Of course. Though considering everything, I feel more and more like this 'bonded for life' thing is just going to be a formality."

He laughed, and rested his head back on the pillow. It felt like everything was getting back to how it had been – perhaps even better. Dad, if it had been Dad and not his own common sense, had been right.

"I have my own confession," she said. "I'm afraid I didn't get you a present. I was hoping to buy you something in Italy."

"So was I. We're lazy, aren't we?"

"Yeah…but, a fault in common is just as good as a virtue."

"We've got each other, we don't need _stuff,_" he said, then, when he saw her look, added "Not until our wedding, anyway."

She laughed. Then, as if they'd agreed it without discussion, he shifted in the single bed to make space, and she took off her shoes lay down next to him, in perfect silent contentment, as darkness gathered outside and the stars came up in the sky.


	12. The Cure

**A/N:** Ladies and gentlemen, the penultimate chapter. I'd say 'at last' but that'd be a bit of a contradiction. Thank you to my betareader, ladyofthelight101, and to last chapter's reviewers SingingBird812, Kerichi, Adventure Seeking Juliet and wild-daisy.

**Chapter Twelve – The Cure**

_"The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word 'love.' It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life."_  
_- Lydia Maria Child_

**April, 2027**

"Maman, it's about time we woke her up!"

"No, no, no, she will be 'er most beautiful if she wakes naturally."

"It's almost half past eight! Louis and Dad are hungry!"

"Oh, they can have a packet of crisps each."

Victoire opened her eyes, hearing the conversation outside her bedroom door.

"Maman? Dom?"

They both immediately ran into the room. Victoire barely had time to sit up before they were both at her side, grinning with excitement.

"It's your wedding day!"

This wedding would not be like the one before it. She'd have the same dress, and the same guests (and more) were coming. But some of the small things were changing. She and Ted would be married under an arch in the Shell Cottage garden, overlooking the sea. Her mother would do her hair and make-up, and they would do that of the bridesmaids together. Family would be doing the catering as well (though the cake was still in perfect condition). It was true to some extent that they had to cut their budget, and that Victoire couldn't bear to plan the same wedding twice (she had privately decided never to go to that hall again if she could help it), but at the heart of it she didn't care about having a huge, sparkling dream wedding any more.

So now, as she sat in the living room with hair products seeping into her roots, watching her bridesmaids squeeze up on the sofa with bowls of cereal to keep their appetites down before the wedding meal, Victoire thought that another thing that hadn't changed was the family themselves. If anything, they were more excited this time, ironically because they had done this so many times before. Weasleys and Lupins got married in places they knew and loved, with the people they knew and loved around them. The frills were an added extra. However, she was still herself, so she did still love frills, and confetti, and flowers and cake and being gorgeous and spoilt. This was why Ted had gone to the trouble of making one more demand on her. She had seen him for the last time before the wedding two days before, and as he kissed her goodnight he had placed a note in her jacket pocket, reading.

_Vic, I decided last night that I want to kiss your face when I marry you. Not cleanser, toner, moisturiser, foundation primer, foundation, powder, blusher, bronzer, perfume and Merlin bloody knows what else, just your bare skin. I haven't made many demands on you but I want this. Love you. T._

At first she had thought 'Absolutely not, if I'm having my picture taken all day'. But when her bridesmaids responded to this with a collective 'awwww', it made her think. It was very nice and romantic of him to ask for this last minute change, but still a tiny bit unfair. Surely if he had such a right, she should too.

She got Dominique to fetch her parchment and ink. It was hardly necessary to write her full name, but it was the last time she would, and it was a little romantic that it should be in a letter to Ted, rather than signing for the delivery of the marquee, which wasn't romantic at all.

All the women in the house were enjoying themselves far too much to be sent on errands. She decided, even though various products were meant to be setting in her hair at this point, to call one of the men to do it, since they had been ready for an hour or so and were now playing cards repeatedly in the dining room.

"Louis! I need you!"

When her brother came running, looking like he had no idea what was going on, she handed the note to him and said "Take this to Ted. He's at Harry's. I'm busy and I _can't_ see him before the wedding."

Louis sighed. "But I'm winning, and Uncle George said if I'm not back in one minute he's going to look at my cards."

"Oh, come on, petit…" she said, looking into his eyes.

Just then, she saw their mother in the doorway, holding a red ribbon in her hand.

"LOUIS! I finally found a ribbon for you to tie back your 'air. It matches the bridesmaids' dresses! You will look so _dashing_!"

Louis grabbed the note. "Going now," he said, and promptly Apparated away.

"Saprist!" Maman said, halting out of surprise. "I keep telling 'im he 'as to Apparate _outside_ the house. They do not teach it like they used to, you know! And did you put on the cream I gave you?"

"I've decided not to wear anything on my face," Victoire admitted. "Ted's idea." She decided Maman might _not_ want to know that he wanted to kiss her skin.

Fleur Weasley was a lady who had been wearing some form of make-up every day since she was twelve, full make-up since she was sixteen, and anti-wrinkle cream since she was twenty-five. She believed in 'look good, feel good' and that perfection was not impossible. Victoire had known from the first few weeks of her engagement how much it mattered to Maman that her daughter should, on her wedding day, be the most beautiful woman in the entire world, and everything else should reflect that. So she didn't expect her to be pleased about the make-up decision. But instead of the expected 'Non, non, NON!', Maman simply smiled warmly, and placed a hand on Victoire's cheek.

"Of course," she said. "Why should we try to paint a glow, when we already 'ave one?"

Victoire flushed even more. She was the bride, and her friends and family were devoting themselves to her today. But it wasn't because of how pretty her face was, it was because of how much they loved her.

Miles away, Ted was upstairs in the spare bedroom Harry and Ginny's house, looking at his reflection in the mirror. He had relaxed completely into his natural appearance, which meant that his hair was a plain medium brown colour. It had come from his mother.

This bedroom was the one that he had stayed in all the times he had visited Harry and Ginny, and when he'd lived there during Gran's illness he had taken a photo of his parents with him, which had stayed on the dressing table ever since. The photo had been taken back in 1995, when the war was only beginning and they were shacked up in Grimmauld Place, and their smiles were as bright as Mum's hair. He hoped that, if they were here, thirty years later, they'd be smiling again.

He looked at them for a moment and wondered if they could see or hear him, like Dad had promised they could. It was worth the try…

"Mum, Dad," he said. "I'm getting married today, as you know, to a wonderful woman, as you also know. We've got our little flat in Cardiff, and we've both got decent jobs at Slug & Jiggers and WizTravel, respectively. Which you also know. I don't know what I'm trying to tell you here. Just that…I guess I…I'm really happy. I feel like I'm a better person than I was in December, and…now that I'm marrying Victoire, I'm…complete. I'm done. Wow, that sounds quite depressing actually…you know what I mean. So…" He breathed out, and relaxed his shoulders, "the groom is getting married today!"

He took a last look at himself in the mirror. Was it normal to think your own hair didn't suit you?

"Mum…" he began, "would you be offended if I…"

"TEDDY!" Harry's voice called from downstairs. "Come here, you've got a message from Victoire."

"She wouldn't." Ted said aloud, then ran downstairs, where Louis was waiting to hand over the small piece of parchment. He opened it slowly, wondering what alarming thing might have to say to him a few hours ahead of the wedding.

_Ted – Wear your hair TURQUOISE. Or whatever colour you like the most. I don't care about the photos any more, I care about you. That said, if you turn up bald, I'm going to put on so much make-up I'll taste like paint! Love you too. Victoire Weasley._

"Thank you…dear," Ted said cheerfully, as he closed his eyes, and let the turquoise come back into his hair. He didn't think Mum would have minded.

He decided then that he was ready. There were two hours left before they had to leave, so really all he had to do was join the others (which now included Louis, who had decided he was better off there) in the living room. He opened the door, and saw everyone waiting for him, looking cheerful and hopeful. Harry reached for something behind him, and handed Ted a purple box with a ribbon tied on it.

"An early birthday present," he said.

Ted was genuinely surprised. "You really shouldn't have…" He opened the box, and inside were a pair of gold cufflinks, with an intricate square pattern, embedded in soft red fabric.

He laughed in amazement. "Harry, these are fantastic…you really didn't have to do this, I mean I'm going to be _twenty-nine_, that's like the most pointless age there is!"

"Ginny and I thought it'd be nice for you to have something to wear with your suit, and you'll probably want to spend your birthday with your wife, so…"

"Thank you," Ted said, happily. "You're so kind to me, both of you. I'll make sure you can see them in all the photos."

So, after another two and a half hours of chaos involving chipped nail polish, late carriages, no one knowing how to put up a marquee and 'well-done' sausages…it was time for the ceremony. Ted could hardly stop himself from smiling as he waited at the top of the aisle.

"Not nervous at all, then?" Rupert whispered to him.

"Nervous? I've waited three years for this, and…"

The music started, the guests stood up, and every head turned to look at the bride.

"…and it was worth it." Ted said, almost inaudibly.

It wasn't part of the original plan to marry outdoors or during the day, but Victoire had grown up by the sea, and the sun lit up her face and hair as she walked. Today, her beauty was only natural, but no less breathtaking. Her dress was so white it was dazzling, and with the tiara on her head she looked like a princess from a Muggle story, but the best thing, for him, was seeing how perfectly happy she looked. That on its own was beautiful. All that they had ever wanted from their wedding was to show their friends and family, and each other, the feelings that were in their hearts. And all it took, for him, was the way her smile grew just a tiny bit when she saw the colour of his hair.

"_I, Theodore Remus Lupin, take you, Victoire Juliette Weasley, to be my beloved wife, to have and to hold you, to honour you, to treasure you, to be at your side in sorrow and in joy, in the good times, and in the bad, and to love and cherish you always. I promise you this from my heart, for all the days of my life. __Just as this circle is without end, my love for you is eternal. Just as it is made of incorruptible substance, my commitment to you will never fail. With this ring, I thee wed."_

"_I now pronounce you bonded for life."_

Victoire kissed Ted the very half-second this finished, and, just as he had asked, he tasted only her bare skin. She had forgone the lipgloss as well. When they broke away, they both felt so exhilarated that they didn't know what to say. He offered her his left hand, and she took it eagerly.

"I love you," he mouthed.

"I love you too," she mouthed back, and puckered her lips in an air-kiss before smiling widely. They turned to face their guests, who were all applauding enthusiastically. There were tears in many eyes.

Any Muggles who looked up at the Shell Cottage this afternoon would see a red tent about big enough for two children. But any wizards who went inside would see a big, beautiful reception hall lit up by a combination of fairies and little silver candles, many round chairs and tables covered in red, silver and gold confetti, and a long buffet table with a huge selection of treats contributed by anyone who'd been willing enough to do it. Victoire decided that hearing her brother say "It is my great pleasure to introduce to you all, for the very first time, Mr and Mrs Lupin," was one of the proudest little moments of her entire life.

They had agreed to have their first dance before the meal, a decision that may or may not have been influenced by the rich-looking chocolate gateau they both had their eyes on. Ted held his wife's hand especially tightly as he lead her to the dance floor.

"If I trip, can we give the whole thing up and do the Kneazle Knees dance?"

She smirked. "No. Enough of the compromises, _hubby dearest_."

Standing in the centre of an empty dance floor was, for a moment, slightly disconcerting, even when everyone in the room was ready to admire them. Victoire noticed Ted's hand seemed rather awkwardly placed on her waist. But as soon as the lights dimmed and the music started, it wasn't hard to imagine that they were alone. Even when she leaned back in his arms and the illusion was broken by applause from their guests, they still felt like themselves, dancing to their song, entirely at home, and perfectly happy.

In the five minutes before the buffet opened, Ted and Victoire quickly dashed over to where Ben and Martha were sitting, with Rupert, Chloe and Isaac.

"How was that?" Victoire asked them, breathlessly.

"Five out of ten," they said simultaneously, then laughed.

"That was beautiful," Martha said. "We couldn't have done any better. And even if you had made mistakes, you guys just looked so in _love_, it wouldn't have mattered."

"Yeah, yeah, we worked hard on that bit," Ted said, putting an arm around Victoire's waist.

"Thank you so much," Victoire said. "Is there anything we can do for you?"

"Oh, no, it's fine…" They began.

"Unless you have a wireless that picks up the football?" Chloe asked, enthusiastically.

"I'm going," Rupert said, standing up. "I've spent far too many afternoons listening to T-t-tot-t…_Spurs_ with all of you!"

"Come on then," Ted said to his friend, cheerfully. "You get priority on the buffet, you know."

Ted and Victoire had been forced to replace their meal with a lunchtime buffet because of how many guests they had, but that hadn't stopped their families from putting together an impressive spread. Everything a person could want on a salad, from garlic croutons to fresh green leaves, was ready for a starter; the main course was a choice of three different kinds of pie with salt-and-pepper potatoes and vegetables, and there were puddings for every taste.

Ted smiled to himself as he took a big spoonful of sliced bacon for his salad. "I do feel sorry for whoever ends up getting their food last. There'll be nothing left; Fleur will have to take them in the house for some toast."

Rupert took a glance at the guests gathering near the buffet table. "How many guests have you invited?"

"Two hundred and twenty!" Victoire exclaimed excitedly. "_Roughly_."

The colour drained from Rupert's face, and his voice was quiet and a little more high-pitched than usual. "T-two hundred and twenty?"

"Things, er, got a bit out of control, you know…"

Rupert put his plate back down and stepped out of the queue. Ted looked at him with some concern.

"Are you OK?" he asked.

"Yes!" Rupert said, a bit too quickly, his eyes not meeting his friend's. "I-I just need a glass of water…or perhaps something a bit stronger…"

Victoire gave her husband a very serious look. "We told you…"

"He'll be fine!" Ted said, confidently. "Don't worry."

As with any other Weasley-prepared meal, lunchtime went by quickly, and soon everyone was waiting for the speeches from the long table where Ted, Victoire and other important members of the wedding party were sitting. Bill was the first to give his speech.

"I could not be prouder to give my daughter away today. She and Ted have waited for this for a long time, and the family have been looking forward to it almost as much as they have. Today is a new and hopeful beginning for them, and for all the family, and after all this time, I think they are more than ready for it. I'd like to propose a toast to the bride and groom; may they have a long, healthy and happy future together."

Victoire slipped her arm around Ted's and briefly rested her head on his shoulder as everyone around the room stood up for them, and he relaxed his own head on hers. If there was one thing to be grateful for about the painful way their wedding had had to be delayed, it was how much energy everyone seemed to be giving out for them. He had his own speech to make, however, and he had to reluctantly let go of Victoire and stand up.

"First of all, thank you, everyone, for coming, and thank you, Bill, for such a kind speech. I'm really glad that so many of you have come, even though this is the second go around, and we hope you're having a great time! Victoire and I have had a lot, and I really mean a lot of kindness and support from Bill and Fleur – who look nearly as immaculate as me and Victoire, and from our many bridesmaids – we weren't sure how to thank them, so we'll say they get first priority on the cake. Also my ushers, James and Albus – sorry if some of you ended up on the wrong side, but I don't have a very big family so I had to borrow a few - and of course my best man, Rupert here, who has neglected the education of hundreds of Hogwarts students to be here, ladies and gentlemen! I can't really begin to explain how much I've relied on them over the past couple of months, so again, all of you, thank you. Now Victoire is, to me, the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world. She is my soul mate. She has been around for me all my life. When I was ten I went through a phase of wanting to be Sherlock Holmes when I grew up – that's a Muggle detective story – and I made her my Irene Adler. I kept a photo of her in my secret drawer and called her 'the girl'. Yes, I was a crazy kid, but even now, she is, '_the_ girl', '_the_ woman', and now '_the_ wife', and she will always remain so in my heart. Victoire, I love you."

In what he knew was a rather old romantic gesture, he removed one of the carnations from the vase in front of her, and offered it to her. She took it, and mouthed, "Love you."

"I can't wait to start a new life with you." He gave her a genuinely meaningful look as he said this, and her eyes acknowledged it. "I'm a Hufflepuff, so I'm optimistic to the point of stupid most of the time, but with you, I think, I really can do anything."

He took her hand, and she stood up to kiss him, and they gratefully toasted everyone who had helped with their wedding.

Finally it was Rupert's turn to make his speech. Victoire gave Ted a cautious look, and he pretended not to notice, so to give Rupert his full attention. He knew he couldn't promise her anything, and that she would worry even when he told her not to, and unfortunately he still very clearly remembered seeing Rupert's Boggart for the first time in third year. It had surprised everyone by disappearing entirely from view and instead filling the room with laughter and taunts, which had become even worse as the poor boy had had no idea how to make them funny.

A crowd of two hundred and twenty people really was a lot bigger than a classroom of twenty Hogwarts students. But nothing else had gone wrong, so surely the good luck could carry on...

It was already too late. Two shots of firewhiskey and comforting words from Martha had done very little to make the audience less intimidating. Rupert swallowed, closed his eyes tightly, and took a couple of deep breaths.

"I…I…first met…T-t-t-ted when…when…I'm sorry…when…"

Ted could see his best friend's face was turning deep red and his eyes had darted to his feet, even though the audience had shown no sign of impatience or annoyance with him. He began to feel like he should never have put Rupert under such pressure, even though after everything they had been through recently, he really felt no one else deserved the job like he did. Even now, when he looked ready to faint.

Victoire must have seen this worry on Ted's face, because she held his hand again under the table.

"Don't be sorry," she said. "You had the best intentions…"

"Yes," he replied, "but I still feel…"

Suddenly, a noise came from the entrance at the other end of the marquee. A guest had come in late, and was now trying to sit down at the nearest table. With a guitar strapped to her back and extremely long brown hair that was streaked with pink, red and black she had attracted far more attention than she'd probably wanted to.

"Oh my God, Victoire!" Louis whispered a bit too loudly from over next to Dominique. "That's Fiona Hopper…she's the lead singer of Mirror Society!"

Victoire instantly knew who she was, and not only in terms of her celebrity status, and she whispered to her husband. "You told me she was a musician, Ted, but I didn't think she was a _musician_ musician!"

"She was at the Minister's Variety Performance when Martha and Ben went on it," he said, relaxing again. "That's where they met and hit it off. I've been sworn to secrecy about the whole thing."

"Victoire!" Fleur whispered crossly to her daughter. "Why did you not tell me that there were famous people coming to your wedding? I would 'ave worn a different dress!"

"Wow, being famous, what must that be like?" Harry muttered.

"Oh, yes, I forgot," Fleur said, straightening up. "_I_ am famous."

Rupert had also noticed the late arrival, but he would not let it interrupt his speech. Again, he closed his eyes and took two deep breaths, and a warm smile spread across his face.

"I first met Ted when we were eleven, on the Hogwarts Express. I was a very unassuming child, but I couldn't help noticing his electric blue hair…"

They had a very memorable afternoon, in the best sense of the word. The music was perfect for them - not many couples got a personal acoustic performance of 'When I Know You're There' by Mirror Society at their wedding. They gave certain guests a chance to request and the younger guests insisted on having 'The Super Duper Wiggle Song' three times even though their parents looked ready to drag them all the way home. The chocolate cake was as delicious as promised, and the wedding cake was so lovely Victoire felt a bit sad to slice it up. Ted thought they were very spoilt when it came to presents – Victoire's aunt, Gabrielle, had sent them a lovely antique grandfather clock for their new home, Andromeda found them a beautiful stained-glass lampshade, and they had enough bottles of wine to start a fine collection. There was also a great surprise in the form of a real mahogany desk, which had come from Gringotts scheduled for the delivery on the day of Ted's wedding.

"Oh, Ted, it's magnificent!" Victoire exclaimed. "You've got to make a study now!"

Ted didn't know whether his parents or his grandfather had arranged this present's delivery, but he wanted to use it well in their memory.

"This isn't going to be my table. My days of intense personal study are over. It'll be ours. For _our_ projects."

She was quietly thrilled with this, and embraced him tightly to show it.

"What did you do with your notes?" she whispered when her mouth was next to his ear.

"I wanted to throw them away, but Rupert was all 'Nooo, you can't throw those away, they're valuable! You nearly discovered something!'. So now he's got them. He can make origami dragons out of them for all I care."

She rested her head on his shoulder. "Good. I like the sound of that."

The party had to come to an abrupt end, as no one was ready to leave when Ted and Victoire's carriage arrived to take them to their hotel, but they considered this a sign of a good time. When they arrived at the hotel, it was pitch dark outside with the new moon, which made their room seem even more romantic and private. Ted immediately threw himself onto the wide, fluffy four-poster bed.

"I have a present for you. Since it's your birthday and we just got married and that," Victoire said. She had a certain excited look in her eyes.

Ted raised his eyebrows, and rolled over towards her, giving her his best smouldering look, eyebrows down and mouth turned up slightly at the edges. "What sort of present?"

She froze for a second, and the look in her eyes changed. "Not that sort of present, you...handsome bugger. That'll come very shortly." She turned around, and pulled out a small roll of parchment sealed with an orange seal saying 'Cardiff Magical Borough Council'.

"What…? Is this something to do with the flat? Come on…"

"No!" she protested. "Open it. Open it now."

He sighed sarcastically, and opened the roll of parchment.

_Cardiff Magical Borough Council – Expression of Interest Form_

"Expression of Interest in what?"

"Keep reading it!"

"Blah, blah, blah…wait…_Have you ever applied to adopt or foster before?_ Why are they asking…" He looked up at her. "Is this…?"

"It's an expression of interest form," she said, meekly. "I wrote to the Cardiff Magical Borough a while back to say we were considering adoption, and they sent me some info. This form is the first commitment. I thought you might like to fill it in."

He was speechless for a moment, partly because, after working for several years in a children's home, he ought to have recognised it immediately. Adoption had been at the back of his mind for months, but he had never expected her to come around to it.

"Do you really want to?" he asked, looking at her without any expression on his face. "You're not just..."

"Yes," she said. "I don't want to wait. I don't want to keep trying when we're afraid of what will happen. I don't want to give up. I want to have a kid with you, Ted Lupin, but we don't need to make one."

Ted looked back and forth between the form and Victoire for a few moments, hardly believing this was happening, that they were going to have a child, a child like he could have been if Gran hadn't been around, to love and care for. They had a long journey ahead still, of course, but that was why they'd married. Taking long journeys together was part of the deal.

"I…I adore you!" he told her. With tears in his eyes, he tossed the form to one side, and slowly moved her face towards his, before kissing her passionately. "Mrs Lupin."

She took a moment to breathe, then kissed him back with the same energy. "And I you, Mr Lupin."


	13. Teddy and Victoire

**A/N:** Finally, the last chapter! I'm sorry it took so long. I spent a long time over the ending and their future, and realised, as Dostoevsky said at the end of a far greater story than this "That might be the subject of a new story, but our present tale is ended". Huge thanks to everyone who reviewed and read over the past two years, and I am especially grateful to my betareaders ladyofthelight101 and rayslady on Livejournal. I hope you enjoy this final chapter.

**Chapter Thirteen - Teddy and Victoire**

_We've been holding hands since we were only children_

_I like the way you arm fits on mine_

_I love you when we're singing "Mischief Managed"_

_'cause we're always having a good time_

- 'Teddy and Victoire', The Remus Lupins

**March 8th, 2030**

It was Friday evening. Ted, like his colleagues Carrie and Will, was packing up to go home, as at the end of every day. But tonight there was a certain flourish in his movements. He flicked his wand almost joyfully at the chair, his briefcase and the drawers of his desk. As he threw his coat on, he looked like he was on the verge of a huge grin.

Carrie and Will exchanged looks of surprise, then smiled as they remembered what today was. Ted had been talking about the ninth of March for a few weeks now, and today was the eighth.

"See you on Monday then, Ted," Carrie said, with a slanted tone, as she knew exactly what he'd reply.

"I won't be in," he said. "I've got the week off. I'm spending time with..." He hesitated.

Will nudged him cheerfully. "Go on, say it."

"_My daughter_," Ted said clearly, and his face glowed, and his hair seemed to stick up a little with triumph.

Ted and Victoire had been waiting for three years, or more if you counted the time before they filled in their first adoption form. It took them a year just to qualify to meet any children. They had had to move to a bigger house, and change their adoption agency to an English one, as Ted had gotten to know most of the children in care in Wales over the years with the Home, and found the prospect of choosing one of them too emotional. Victoire had had to change her job to involve less travel and more grounded work. And then they'd had to go through an interview, which really was like a trial - they'd even had to call in 'witnesses' to provide a judgement on their characters. Now, finally, they'd see if those sacrifices had been worth it.

Ted stopped at the grocery store before he went home. He knew that in a few weeks this would be the most mundane thing in the world, but he was uncontrollably excited to be getting supplies of Golden Honey Snitches cereal, kid-size cartons of pumpkin juice, chocolate biscuits shaped like dragons and oranges which peeled and divided themselves. He also got a bottle of champagne for a Galleon. It was somewhat beneath Victoire's usual standards, but he was sure she'd appreciate it tonight.

He Apparated to the path outside their home. He looked up and saw that the spare bedroom window light was on. Victoire was probably adding some finishing touches to their daughter's room.

_Our daughter_, Ted thought, for what was probably the hundredth time that day alone. _We're going to have a daughter_.

He opened the door, and Victoire came downstairs as soon as she heard him. He held up the champagne for her.

"Got us a little treat," he said. "After all, it's our last night alone! Tomorrow, we're Mum and Dad."

Victoire smiled slightly. She seemed a little distracted. "Oh, that's wonderful. The dinner's just cooking now, will you go and lay the table?"

When Ted went into the dining room with the knives and forks in his hand, he saw that everything was cleaner than it had ever been in the two years since they'd moved in. The table was covered with a white lace tablecloth that he had never seen before and there was a jug of water with ice and a bowl of salad already on the table. It smelled of blue cheese dressing. The condiments were neatly arranged in the middle of the table, and finally, there was a red candle in pride of place, waiting to be lit. Ted lit it with his wand, and admired the warm glow in the room. When Victoire came downstairs, he congratulated her.

"Place looks nice," he said. "Special occasion?"

"All our dinners are going to be like this from now on," she said. She patted the chair at the head of the table. "Sit down. This is your place."

Ted raised his turquoise eyebrows. "Oh come on, you can't be serious. I have a _place_ now?"

She frowned. "You said yourself we needed to create a routine in the house, so that's what I'm doing. Sit down, _Father_."

That was indeed what he'd said. Working in a children's home had given him a little understanding of what older adoptive children needed. Their first day ought to be like any other day. It was no good to bombard her with gifts, luxury food and her choice of bedtime if that wasn't the long-term plan. She needed to know quickly what being part of the family meant.

"Routine means, like, everyone has lunch together at the weekend, or, bath night is Tuesday and Thursday...stuff like that. Not, bloody, Father at the head of the table and candles every night. This is 2030, after all," Ted said.

Victoire folded her arms. "You might think it's over the top, but I think its reassuring. It feels good when everything fits together nicely. Our home is attractive and welcoming."

He rolled his eyes and smirked. "Oh yes, and I suppose you'll be doing your needlework tonight while I take snuff and read the evening newspaper."

"You're not funny," she snapped. "Stop thinking you're right about everything."

He stopped smirking. "Oh, really, Vic, I was just..."

The faint smell of burning entered the room.

"Oh bloody hell, Ted, look what you made me do!" Victoire said, though with that her back became less stiff, her face relaxed, and a bit of her hair came loose. She pushed the door forcefully with mock frustration and went back into the kitchen.

"Yeah, if there's one thing kids _definitely_ don't like, it's burnt dinner!" Ted said.

He panicked for a second that she would take this seriously and get into a

mood for the rest of the evening, but when she came back in with the dish full

of meatballs, she looked just fine.

"I'll have to tell our girl it's not that Mum's a bad cook, it's that Dad's

got a habit of distracting her," she said, and he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek.

After dinner, they talked for a long time over the champagne. They'd been over

nearly everything in the past two years, but it was comforting to rehearse it one more time. The day after her arrival they'd take her shopping for things for her room. The following week if everything went well they'd start looking at local schools for her to go to. At the end of the month, towards Easter, she'd meet her adoptive godparents Rupert and Dominique, her grandparents Bill and Fleur and her great-grandmother Andromeda. Then they'd slowly, slowly introduce her to the rest of the Weasley clan.

Of course they both knew that it might be useless to make plans like these. They really didn't know what was in store for them, but keeping a vision of the future, they thought, would help with any difficulties that came in the present. Like how nervous they were both becoming. They held their champagne glasses with both hands like they were mugs of hot tea, which might have been better suited to the mood of the night.

"Do you think she'll like us?" Victoire asked, breaking the ice a little.

Ted looked down at the table. "Hopefully. I mean...most adoptions, statistically, go well, so...as long as we try our best, you know..."

It was unusual, all this. If they'd made or adopted a baby, they'd have had all the support they could possibly need from their families and friends, and more. But this child had already lived six years without them, and there weren't so many who knew what to say about that. At times they were frightened that that precious family bond would never form, even though they'd been assured by social workers and other parents that it would if they just kept working on it.

"And also," he said, "she was matched with us. We chose her."

"Yes," she said, her face lighting up in the memory. "I might ask for a copy of that photograph. It's wonderful."

Ted also felt a little better at remembering the first time he saw that photo. They'd been on the list for six months by that time and hadn't really had a match which suited them yet. They had begun to wonder if they ever would. Then one afternoon the witch from the Magical Adoption Bureau had come to visit, and given them the profile of a little girl with out-of-control hair and brightly coloured clothes. She was sat at a table - she'd been interrupted in the middle of doing some art. There were spots of paint on her little hands. Something about her face appealed to them both more than any of the photos they'd seen before, and when they read all the information attached to the photo, this feeling got stronger and stronger. They kept the profile and re-read it several times that same evening and the next morning. And that was it. It was love.

The evening was getting late. They put away everything, and did quick spells over anything that looked out of place or unsatisfactory, even though they'd probably wake up tomorrow and put them back the way they were. They knew they had to get to bed early, but neither of them really expected to sleep.

"I finished her room today," Victoire told Ted, quietly. "Do you want to see it?"

He followed her upstairs to the room that would be their daughter's. They'd painted it in a soft yellow colour with rainbow wallpaper on the bottom half of the wall, in tribute to her 'personal style'. It was quite bare because they thought she'd be happier choosing her own toys, but neither of them could help themselves from adding a few personal touches.

"I found this today," Victoire said, gesturing to a battered stuffed hippogriff at the end of the bed. "He seems rather _familiar_."

"Gran sent him over," Ted said, looking at it fondly. "His name's Flappy, my mum bought him for me. Though these days he's more like Floppy. I always hoped I'd have a kid to give him to."

In the corner of the room was a magnificent doll's house. The beams of the house were made out of real wood and the roof was lined with shells, just like Shell Cottage. It had a bright wooden gate at the front and little plastic flowers along the fence. A family of dolls were stood outside as if they were waiting to move in.

"That," Victoire said, with a certain pride, "is Sunflower House. It was my best toy for a long time. Dad did all the paintwork - he said he wanted to do _something_ for his first grandchild's arrival."

"They...they don't mind, do they?" Ted asked, slightly anxiously. The last thing he wanted was for the family to get annoyed with them, or to turn up unexpectedly out of desperation to see the new Lupin.

"Oh no, not really. They've waited two years, so a few weeks is nothing. And my poor Maman is still trying to deal with the fact she's becoming a grandma _and _turning fifty in the next few weeks."

The family had sent along a few little gifts to make the bedroom more homely. By the mirror was a brand new hairbrush and comb from Fleur which would make their daughter's hair shine - _if _she wanted it to, of course. On the bookshelves were several books of Winnie The Pooh which Dominique had donated, saying that even if they were for Muggles they were 'classic' or something. Downstairs they had some gifts from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes that they would give her once she'd settled in a bit more. Finally, on her bedside table, Victoire had placed a small bouquet of flowers from the garden.

"They're the first crop of daffodils this year," she said, "Granddad said he was sorry he didn't have any that smelled better, bless him. I think they make the place look...fresh, you know?"

Ted agreed. He wasn't much of a flowers man himself, but they did make the place look a bit more welcoming, even at night.

"They're perfect," he said. He put an arm around her waist, and she leant her head on his shoulder. They stood in the clean, empty room for just a little while longer, then silently agreed to go to bed.

As he joined her in bed that night, he said once again "Merlin, this time tomorrow, we'll be...a family of three."

Victoire beamed. "Parents of one."

"Our daughter. Our...Victoire, that, that is _our daughter's bed_."

"And those are _Daddy's pyjamas _you've got on."

He leant his head to hers and breathed deeply. "_Mummy's_ perfume."

Daddy, Mummy. Family. Those words, those two people had meant everything to them both. She was the girl from the family that the papers said was taking over wizarding Britain, and he was the last Lupin. They had a destructive disease in their veins that had almost destroyed them in an entirely different way to the expected. But now, the struggle was almost over, and though it would take a little while longer for the pieces of the puzzle to fit together just right, they were so content, so purely full of love, and nothing in the world could change that now.

* * *

_**Adoption Announcement**_

_We are delighted to announce that our daughter,_

**SOPHIE MADELINE**

_born 21st of August, 2024,_

_joined our family and our home 9th of March, 2030._

_Visitors welcome after the 9th of April._

_221 Candlewick Street, Cardiff_

_with love, Ted and Victoire._


End file.
